France’s Senate has approved a contested pension reform raising the retirement age to 62 despite months of nationwide protests and strikes.
After 140 hours of debate, the Senate approved the reform Friday with a vote of 177-153. Get the full story »
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Oct. 22, 2010 at 1:48 p.m.
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Filed under: Economy, Government, Jobs/employment, Labor, Retirement France moves closer to raising retirement age
40,000 drop-side cribs recalled
By Kristin Samuelson | The Consumer Product Safety Commission and three U.S. cribmakers on Friday announced voluntary recalls of approximately 40,650 drop-side cribs after receiving reports of six child injuries from the cribs.
Office Depot, exes settle SEC charges for $1 million
Office Depot Inc., its chief executive and a former executive agreed to collectively pay more than $1 million to settle regulator’s charges of improper disclosures, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.
The SEC had accused the company, its CEO Stephen Odland and former chief financial officer Patricia McKay of conveying to analysts and big investors that the company would not meet analysts’ earning estimates for the second quarter of 2007. Get the full story »
U.S. nudges Ford owners to get recalled vehicles fixed
The U.S. government is urging owners of recalled Ford Motor Co. vehicles linked to engine fires to get them fixed.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says about 17.5 million Ford vehicles have been recalled since 1999 over faulty cruise control switches. The switches can overheat and lead to a fire. Get the full story »
U.S says foreclosure problems were not systemic
The Obama administration said Wednesday that it found no sign of “systemic” troubles s with U.S. home mortgages, as banks sought to play down a crisis over accusations of shoddy foreclosure practices.
But Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan insisted the government would “take every action” to press banks to fix paperwork problems at the core of a foreclosure crisis that has put major financial firms on the hot seat. Get the full story »
Oct. 20, 2010 at 1:40 p.m.
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Filed under: Economy, Government, Jobs/employment, Manufacturing Fed report casts sluggish economy in beige
The U.S. economy grew sluggishly in recent weeks with scant inflation pressures, and employers were reluctant to hire or invest amid economic and policy uncertainties, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.
The U.S. central bank’s Beige Book provided further evidence the economy is stuck in a weak recovery that is failing to generate jobs. Get the full story »
Bernanke: Fed ready to give more help
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. (AP)
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday laid out a case for the central bank to take further action to bolster growth, citing the risks of prolonged high unemployment and a U.S. economy slipping into a deflationary spiral.
In a much-anticipated speech in Boston, Bernanke did not spell out details of how and when the Fed would take action. But the first option that he mentioned was a program of buying additional assets, namely government bonds, in an effort to drive down long-term interest rates and stimulate economic growth.
The central bank is widely expected to announce such a program, known as quantitative easing, at its next policymakers’ meeting on Nov. 2 and 3. Get the full story »
Inflation lower than expected in September
Consumer prices are up slightly over last year driven by climbing food and energy costs, according to a government report released Friday.
The Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, rose 1.1 percent over the last 12 months ending in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. Any number above zero means prices are rising, but a rate around 1 percent is considered very slow growth. Get the full story »
SEC votes on plan to police swaps, derivatives
The top U.S. securities regulator Wednesday took its first stab at policing the $615 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market with a plan to mitigate conflicts of interests at venues that will handle the swaps.
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5-0 to propose ownership limits on the swaps trading venues and clearinghouses, which will assume the risk if one party defaults. Get the full story »
Fed minutes: Debt purchases dominate
A new program to pump up the U.S. economy through the purchase of government debt dominated Federal Reserve officials’ discussions at their September meeting.
Minutes of the closed-door deliberations, released Tuesday, suggest Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues were closing in on a consensus to launch such a program. Get the full story »
French up ante in fight over later retirement
Arcelor Mittal steel workers protest pension reforms that would delay retirement until age 62, in Marseille, France. (Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)
French trade unions began a fresh wave of strikes against pension reform on Tuesday, testing the resolve of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government as the unpopular bill edges closer to becoming law.
Rail services, flights and sea ports ran below capacity as the unions kept up their battle against a plan to make people work longer for their pensions, including raising the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60. Get the full story »
FAA: Cargo holds can get too hot for lithium batteries
U.S. aviation officials are warning air carriers that new research shows lithium batteries are sensitive to heat and can ignite in-flight if transported in cargo compartments that get too hot. Get the full story »
95,000 jobs lost, unemployment holds at 9.6%
The nation’s bleak employment picture dimmed in September as private-sector hiring weakened and the economy lost a net 95,000 jobs over the month.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate last month remained at 9.6 percent, but that reflected a stagnant labor force in which people did not enter or return to the labor market to look for work. In what may be a more meaningful indicator this time, a broader measure of unemployed and underemployed workers, including part-timers who can’t find full-time work, rose to 17.1 percent last month from 16.7 percent in August.
