Video: Ben Bernanke Interview on 60 Minutes – Depression Averted, Recovery Soon
Filed under: Bailout Bill, Ben Bernanke, Recession, U.S. Economy, U.S. Financial Crisis
Bernanke on 60 Minutes Part 1:
Bernanke on 60 Minutes Part 2:
Add Condom Sales to Recession-Proof Business List
From the Columbus Dispatch on Saturday:
Nationwide, sales of male contraceptives in food, drug and mass-merchandise stores increased 6.4 percent in the last 13 weeks of 2008 compared with 2007, according to the Nielsen Co., which tracks products.
Nielsen also counts how many condoms are sold, and that number went up 2.4percent in the same period.
The trend continued in January, with sales up 5.3 percent compared with the previous year and per-unit sales up 1.6 percent, Nielsen found.
Condom sales are pretty much recession-proof, said Carol Carrozza, vice president of marketing at Ansell Healthcare in Red Bank, N.J. Ansell is one of the largest manufacturers of condoms in the world.
“In this time of fear, people tend to be coupling more,” Carrozza said. “There’s a nesting effect, and people are staying home.”
Reluctance to have children in uncertain times also adds to the condom boom, she said.
The piece also dealt with Hilliard, Ohio condom entrepreneur Brian Frank. His business, Undercover Condoms, has had a “rise” in sales even though the economy is “flagging.”
If you want to wrap your rascal, or your mate’s, go visit Undercover Condoms. Buy Ohio!
The Daily Graphic: Interactive Graphic from NYT – How the Gov Dealt With Past 7 Recessions
You’ll need to experience this on your whole screen. Click the image below to go to the NYT website. Each recession or pair of recessions includes and audio clip from an economist explaining more about the particular circumstances of that downturn.
Click Image to Go to Original Page
Full Text: Larry Summers Speech, Brookings Institution, The Obama Program and the Current Economic Crisis
Filed under: Recession, U.S. Economy, U.S. Financial Crisis
(Source: White House Press Office)
I am glad to be here. This morning I want to describe our understanding of the root of our current economic crisis, talk about the rationale for the Administration’s recovery strategy, and connect our longer-term economic strategy to the central objective of sustained and healthy expansion.
U.S. Household Wealth Still Falling – Fed
From the BBC:
Households saw a 9% drop in wealth from the previous quarter – the largest since the Fed began collecting records more than 50 years ago. …
…The decline in net worth was the sixth consecutive quarterly drop.
The record fall pushed the total net worth of households down to $51.48 trillion. It has now fallen 20% below its peak of $64.36tn in the third quarter of 2007.
Since then house prices have tumbled and more than a million people have lost their homes.
The World Has 332 Fewer Billionaires This Year
From the BBC:
Just 793 people can now lay claim to a place on the list, but on average they have lost 23% of their wealth.
The stock market collapse helped Microsoft founder Bill Gates regain the top spot, despite his wealth declining $18bn (£13.06bn) to $40bn.
He ousted investor Warren Buffet whose fortune declined by $25bn to $37bn.
Recession: From Wall Street to … Sesame Street?
From the Financial Times:
The recession has spread from Wall Street to Sesame Street. The home of Elmo and Oscar the Grouch announced on Wednesday that it would eliminate a fifth of its 355-strong workforce as market turmoil ate into its income and assets.
Sesame Workshop, the 41-year-old non-profit educational organisation behind the Sesame Street television programmes, toys and community projects, said on Wednesday it was “not immune to the unprecedented challenges of today’s economic environment”.
Unemployment Double Digit in Four States, National number exptected to follow by year’s end
From the Associated Press:
Four states — California, South Carolina, Michigan and Rhode Island — registered unemployment rates above 10 percent in January, and the national rate is expected to hit double digits by year-end.
The Labor Department’s report on state unemployment, released Wednesday, showed the increasing damage inflicted on workers and companies from a recession, now in its second year. Some economists now predict the unemployment rate will hit 10 percent by year-end, and peak at 11 percent or higher by the middle of 2010.
In December, only Michigan had a double-digit jobless rate. One month later, four states did and that did not count Puerto Rico, where the unemployment rate actually dipped to 13 percent in January, from 13.5 percent in December.
Bloomberg: Cleveland, Detroit Canaries in the Coal Mine for Coming Commercial Real Estate Problems
From Bloomberg on Monday:
March 9 (Bloomberg) — If you want to know what’s going to happen to commercial real estate across the U.S., look no further than Cleveland and Detroit.
Those two metropolitan areas lead the U.S. in mortgage delinquencies for owners of office buildings, apartments, malls and warehouses, a sign that cities hurt by the housing crisis will see their commercial markets dragged down next.
Commercial properties with mortgage payments 60 days late or more rose to 3.93 percent as of March in the Cleveland area and to 3.75 percent in the Detroit area, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The North American commercial property delinquency rate is 1.1 percent, according to Standard & Poor’s. …
… Cleveland’s office vacancy rate was 14.8 percent in 2008 and is forecast to rise to 20.4 percent in 2010, according to CBRE Econometric Advisors, part of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., the largest U.S. commercial real estate broker. A rate above 20 percent would be the highest since 1991, according to Jon Southard, principal at CBRE Econometric.
Cleveland’s unemployment rate was 7.1 percent in December. Ohio’s unemployment rate was 8.8 percent in January as the state lost 214,600 non-farm jobs, including 90,600 in manufacturing and 12,000 in financial services.
Transcript: Obama Interview with New York Times Aboard Air Force One – May Negotiate with Taliban
Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Recession, Terrorism, U.S. Economy, U.S. Financial Crisis
(Source: New York Times)
President Obama spoke in a 35-minute interview aboard Air Force One on Friday afternoon as he traveled from Columbus, Ohio to Andrews Air Force Base. This is an edited transcript, as recorded by The New York Times.
Q. You said it’s going to take a long time to get out of this economic crisis. Can you assure the American people that the economy will be growing by the summer, the fall or the end of the year?
A. I don’t think that anybody has that kind of crystal ball. We are going through a wrenching process of de-leveraging in the financial sectors – not just here in the United States, but all around the world – that have profound consequences for Main Street. What started off as problems with the banks, led to a contraction of lending, which led in turn to both declining demand on the part of consumers, but also declining demand on the part of business. So it is going to take some time to work itself through.
The Daily Graphic: Jobs Forecast Interactive Map
Today’s choice is from USA Today. Moody’s has released a report which forecasts overall job growth for the U.S. by 2010. USA Today took the data and created an interactive map, which can be broken down by employment sector, showing how individual states are forecasted. You can click the screen grab below to go to the original.
Click Map to Go to Original Interactive Map
Eighth Straight Week With At Least One Bank Failure
Filed under: Banking, Recession, U.S. Economy, U.S. Financial Crisis
This week there was only one bank seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, Ga.
The Daily Graphic: Putting February’s Job Losses in Perspective
From the NYT’s blog Economix:
Worst Monthly Job Losses ...
Reports: GM Teetering on Edge of Bankruptcy
Auditors raise specter of Chapter 11: Detroit Free Press
General Motors Corp.’s auditors have raised “substantial doubt” about the troubled automaker’s ability to continue operations, and the company said it may have to seek bankruptcy protection if it can’t execute a huge restructuring plan.
The automaker revealed the concerns today in an annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
GM’s 20-year global plan unraveling: Detroit News
A stunning reversal, it would mark the unwinding of a 20-year strategy conceived by retired Chairman Jack Smith and leveraged by his successors into strong market positions in China, Russia, Europe and Latin America. Now, it’s all in danger of coming apart, driven by sheer financial necessity and not strategic design.
One possible result, I’m told, is that government negotiators in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom would insist that a GM Europe recapitalized with their taxpayer money — possibly to be called “Opel Vauxhall Europa” after GM’s two European brands — be aligned with but financially walled off from GM in the United States.
‘Substantial Doubt’: BBC
“The corporation’s recurring losses from operations, stockholders’ deficit, and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet its obligations and sustain its operations raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern,” auditors for Deloitte & Touche wrote in the annual report.
The auditors’ remarks reflect comments already made by the firm about its dire difficulties.
Auditors raise doubts about GM as ‘going concern’: New York Times
G.M.’s president and chief operating officer, Frederick A. Henderson, received compensation worth $1.7 million in 2008, a 76 percent reduction. Mr. Henderson agreed to cut his base salary by 30 percent in 2009 to $1.3 million.
G.M. said it could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection in a number of situations, including failure to receive more federal aid, failure to exact concessions from bondholders and the United Automobile Workers union, and further deterioration of an already dismal new-vehicle market in the United States.
A “going concern” letter can be a bargaining tool for a company in discussions with its unions and other stakeholders who may resist concessions without proof of a company’s distress.
The Daily Graphic: Stimulus Money – Cash for Transportation
From the New York Times. Read the accompanying story.
