Tag Archives: economy

Also of note: the insurer of the ditched plane is AIG. (Photo Via – Dealbreaker)

Just two months after they announced the closure of selected locations around the country, today Circuit City says that they are closing down the entire chain. Circuit City Stores Inc., the bankrupt consumer-electronics retailer, named four liquidators to sell the remaining merchandise in 567 U.S. stores before it goes out of business. Liquidators Great American Group WF LLC; Hudson Capital …

Un-fucking-real. After a marathon negotiating session, the Bush administration agreed early Friday to give Bank of America an additional $20 billion worth of fresh capital to help it stomach the losses at Merrill Lynch, which the company acquired Jan. 1. The funds are in addition to $25 billion in TARP rescue funds Bank of America has already received. The new …

Hitting the economic blogs today is this PDF summarizing Barack Obama’s preliminary economic recovery and reinvestment plan. It’s written in very simple language, lots of interesting stuff in there. Dig in and give us your thoughts.

The busiest record store in the country, Virgin Times Square, will be closing in April, much earlier than previously announced. The coming closure of the Union Square location was announced last year, but no final date of business is known. Music retailing, what little is left, has effectively been returned to the place from which it first sprang over 40 …

Get out your hankies….the Log Cabin Republicans are in debt. The Log Cabin Republicans, hampered by lackluster 2008 fundraising, is facing financial difficulties and ended the year at least $100,000 in debt, according to Patrick Sammon, the organization’s president, who spoke to the Blade Friday. Sammon said he expects the organization to have around $100,000 in debt or “maybe a …

Surprising nobody, new data reveals that health costs and other benefits are wreaking havoc on NYC’s budget. Average salaries for NYC employees went up 33% since 2000 (very comparable to the 29% inflation rate since then), but the cost of employee benefits soared 186%. Overall compensation cost has risen 66% in just eight years. The NY Post points out that …

The December unemployment numbers are out and things are worse than feared.. The nation’s unemployment rate bolted to 7.2 percent in December, the highest level in 16 years, as nervous employers slashed 524,000 jobs. The labor market is expected to remain weak as mass layoffs continue. The Labor Department’s report, released Friday, underscored the terrible toll the deepening recession is …

Defender of the First Amendment, Larry Flynt, and defender of his multiple charges of scumbaggery, Joe Francis, say they are going to ask Congress for a bailout of the porn industry. Joe Francis and Larry Flynt claim the economy has made America’s sexual appetite go limp, so they’re going to the one place where sex is always rampant — Congress. …

Via Pew’s Then And Now poll.

Pat Robertson has had his annual sit-down with God this week and here’s what he said the FSM whispered in his ear about 2009. -Obama will lead the nation into socialism and we’ll be happy to follow.-The world will condemn Israel, but they’ll survive. (A safe bet.)-The economy will recover, but there will be hyperinflation, the dollar will dive “dramatically”, …

For the second year in a row, New York City has topped perennial tourism leaders Orlando and Las Vegas with an estimated 47 million visitors. Foreign tourists, who took advantage of the weak dollar and flocked to the city, accounted for most of the increase, with their numbers reaching nearly 10 million, about a million more than in the previous …

On what is supposed to be one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year, a few blocks from my mother’s house in Orlando I found this brand new and massive SuperTarget nearly deserted, with only two of two dozen checkout lanes open. RELATED: This SuperTarget is in a development cringingly called “SoDO“, the “South of Downtown Orlando” area. Eeesh.

Whoa. Struggling U.S. automakers are launching a round of severe cutbacks as they wait for a government rescue, with Chrysler saying yesterday it will idle all 30 of its U.S. factories for one month. Chrysler’s plants will furlough 46,000 workers beginning Friday, as a planned two-week holiday shutdown is extended to a month and possibly longer. The company, which has …

The auto industry bailout fell apart late last night. A bailout-weary Congress killed a $14 billion package to aid struggling U.S. automakers Thursday night after a partisan dispute over union wage cuts derailed a last-ditch effort to revive the emergency aid before year’s end. Republicans, breaking sharply with President George W. Bush as his term draws to a close, refused …

Man, you really know Wall Street has been hit hard when Scores, Gotham’s jiggle-titty mecca, is closing. It’s the last lap dance for Scores, the strip club empire whose comely babes attracted A-list celebs and money-burning execs. Once the highest-grossing strip club chain in the world and a hangout for Madonna, Howard Stern, Russell Crowe, Jason Giambi and countless others, …

First we hear that the New York Times has mortgaged their brand new midtown skyscraper and may have to sell it, and now comes word that the Tribune Company has filed for bankruptcy. The company that owns the Los Angeles Times, KTLA Channel 5 and the Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection today, seeking relief from $12 billion in debt …

The lawyers are rushing in to the Wal-mart death stampede case and the first lawsuit has already been filed. Yesterday an autopsy revealed that the dead employee died of “positional asphyxiation” or trampling to death. Nassau police released the findings at a news conference in which they also defended themselves from criticism – including allegations of negligence by a father …

It truly is Black Friday. A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said. The 34-year-old employee, a temporary maintenance worker, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m. Witnesses said the surging throngs …