Crash Survival Zone

The number of Americans who say their lives are a struggle climbed steeply last year from less than half the population to nearly six in 10 people, a vast Gallup poll showed Friday.

“In January of 2008, 49 percent of Americans were thriving, 47 percent struggling and four percent were suffering. In November and December, 38 [...]

China faces an economic “hard landing” and the risk of social unrest with growth slowing to 6 percent or less this year, the weakest pace since 1990, Fitch Ratings said.

James McCormack, the Hong Kong-based head of Asian sovereign ratings for Fitch, gave the estimate in a teleconference today.

That would be less than half of the [...]

Even the brewing industry is starting to go flat in the worldwide economic slump.

SABMiller PLC, the London-based brewer of Grolsch, Miller Genuine Draft and Peroni Nastro Azzurro lagers, said on Thursday its beer shipments fell unexpectedly in the third quarter as consumers pulled back on their demand.

Carlsberg A/S, the Copenhagen-based maker of Carslberg beer, said [...]

by Michael R. Sesit

Can the Obama effect last?

The U.S. president-elect is so admired, engenders such high aspirations and is such a wellspring of hope that no one could meet these expectations. That’s bad news for financial markets.
Barack Obama is four days from entering the White House with more at stake than any president since Franklin [...]

Consumer prices and industrial production tumbled in the U.S. as a record slide in retail sales destroyed companies’ pricing power and idled more than a quarter of factory capacity.

The cost of living fell 0.7 percent in December, capping the smallest annual increase since 1954, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Industrial output shrank 2 [...]

A decline in U.S. stock indexes below the 2008 lows from November may trigger a rout that pushes benchmark averages to levels not seen since the mid-1990s, according to two leading technical analysts.

“Hopefully we don’t make new lows, because if we do, all bets are off,” said Ralph Acampora, who retired from Knight Capital Group [...]

There was great dissension among economists and public policy experts over the use of the first $350 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall after numerous false starts and even after the Treasury Dept. settled on its primary TARP strategy: pumping money into a handful of financial service companies in hopes of preventing [...]

Americans overwhelmingly say federal bailout has not been effective and majority want the government to stop providing money to banks.

The government’s financial bailout for troubled banks has not worked so far, a majority of respondents to a national poll say, and six in 10 don’t want Washington to spend more money on the rescue.

Sixty-one percent [...]

by Julian D.W. Phillips

The world is facing a buckling drop in the level of confidence on so many fronts. Bankers don’t trust each other, investors are fearful of further bad news. Financial systems have not been repaired and remain vulnerable. Local and global economies are shrinking and telling us the worst. Currencies are faring badly [...]

The International Energy Agency on Friday forecast that world oil demand will drop for two consecutive years, the first time it’s done so in 26 years.

The Paris-based energy group, in its monthly report, slashed its estimate of 2009 demand by 1 million barrels of a day, to 85.3 million barrels a day.

It also cut its [...]