THE RECESSSION HITS JAMAICA AS WELL

KINGSTON, Jamaica: Unemployment is becoming a serious problem in Jamaica and to underscore the current situation, 600 persons recently turned up to apply for 10 vacancies at the Captain's Bakery and Grill in St Andrew.

In a recent story in the Jamaica Gleaner entitled “We want work”, the newspaper reported that the cry for jobs has been echoing across the island.


"You have a job can give me?” one frustrated woman asked the Gleaner reporters, while others offered to do any sort of job that was available.

The Gleaner report stated that that thousands more Jamaicans had lost their jobs in the past 12 months and indications that the worsening global economic crisis could cause many others to be sent home.

The government, which was elected in 2007 with a promise to create "jobs, jobs and more jobs", has said that it is “pulling out all the stops” to find new job opportunities.

The Minister of Labour Pearnel Charles has announced that his Ministry will be switching its focus from industrial disputes to human-resource development.

According to Charles, the government will spend approximately J$90 million (US$1 million) to train and place Jamaicans in jobs locally and in the wider western hemisphere.

OH SNAPPPPP MACY'S SHUTTING DOWN STORES

Department-store operator Macy's Inc. said Thursday it will close 11 underperforming stores in nine states -- affecting 960 employees -- and lowered its forecast for the fourth quarter after one of the weakest holiday seasons in years.

Stores slated to close include locations in Los Angeles, West Palm Beach, Fla., Nashville, Tenn., and St. Louis, among others. Cincinnati-based Macy's Inc. says the closures will cost about $65 million, most of which will be booked in the 2008 fourth quarter.

Clearance sales at the stores begin next week.

"These closings are part of our normal-course process to prune underperforming locations each year in order to maintain a healthy portfolio of stores," said Macy's Chief Executive Terry J. Lundgren in a statement.

Employees at the stores that are closing may be considered for open positions at other Macy's stores, the company said.

Department-store operators have been among the harder-hit in the retail sector as consumers cut back amid the recession, hunting for bargains and trading down to discounters.

Macy's reported Thursday that its December sales at stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, fell 4 percent -- still not as bad as the 5.3 percent drop analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting.

Total sales for the five-week period ended Jan. 3 fell 5 percent to $4.4 billion from $4.61 billion last year.

Same-store sales fell 7.5 percent during the combined November and December holiday period. Macy's said the holiday season ended with improving sales in the fourth and fifth weeks of December but that sales were sluggish before that.

The company said it marked items down sharply in the fourth quarter to gain sales and reduce its inventories, but that hurt its margins and led it to lower its profit forecast for the fourth quarter and full year.

Macy's now expects earnings of 90 cents to $1 per share in the fourth quarter, down from its previous guidance of $1.10 to $1.30 per share. Analysts expect earnings of $1.11 per share.

For the full year, the company now expects to earn $1.10 to $1.20 per share, down from its previous forecast of $1.30 to $1.50 per share. Analysts expect a profit of $1.35 per share.

New York Times To Borrow $225M Against Its Building

The New York Times Company plans to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.
The company has retained Cushman & Wakefield, the real estate firm, to act as its agent to secure financing, either in the form of a mortgage or a sale-leaseback arrangement, said James M. Follo, the Times Company’s chief financial officer.

The Times Company owns 58 percent of the 52-story, 1.5 million-square-foot tower on Eighth Avenue, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and completed last year. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building. The Times Company’s portion of the building is not currently mortgaged, and some investors have complained that the company has too much of its capital tied up in that real estate.

The company has two revolving lines of credit, each with a ceiling of $400 million, roughly the amount outstanding on the two combined. One of those lines is set to expire in May, and finding a replacement would be difficult given the economic climate and the company’s worsening finances. Analysts have said for months that selling or borrowing against assets would be the company’s best option for averting a cash flow problem next year.

Standard & Poor’s recently lowered its credit rating on the Times Company below investment grade, and Moody’s Investors Service has said it was considering a similar move. Times Company stock, which has lost more than half its value this year, closed on Friday at $7.64, down 30 cents.

BREAKING NEWS! Illinois "will suspend doing any business with Bank of America

BREAKING NEWS!


Gov. Rod Blagojevich said this morning the state of Illinois "will suspend doing any business with Bank of America" until the company restores credit to the shuttered Republic Windows & Doors company on the North Side.

Blagojevich made the announcement after meeting with former workers who have been staging a sit-in on the factory floor since Friday to protest abruptly losing their jobs. The governor said the state has "hundreds of millions of dollars" in dealings with the bank.

Union leaders say they've been trying to get Republic's creditor, Bank of America, to reinstate the company's line of credit and save hundreds of jobs.

The bank has said it isn't responsible for Republic's financial obligations to its employees.

A meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. with bank officials, company management and a union representing the workers, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, said.

About 60 workers were at the plant this morning. A total of about 200 workers were occupying the building, alternating in eight-hour shifts.

The workers have attracted media attention and become a national symbol for thousands of employees laid off nationwide as the economy continues to sour.

Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan said Sunday her office is investigating the company.

President-elect Barack Obama said during a news conference Sunday that the company should follow through on its commitments to the workers.

Gutierrez said the workers under federal law are entitled to 60 days' pay in the event of a shutdown.

Shi$t!!! American Express to cut 7,000 jobs

NEW YORK – In a stark acknowledgment of the tough times ahead in the credit card industry, American Express Co. said Thursday that it plans to cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its worldwide work force, in an effort to slash costs by $1.8 billion in 2009.

The New York-based credit card issuer said it is also suspending management level salary increases next year and instituting a hiring freeze.

The job cuts will be across various business units, but will primarily focus on management positions, the company said.

Additionally, American Express said it plans to scale back investments in technology and marketing and business development, and streamline costs associated with some rewards programs. The company also expects to cut expenses for consulting and other professional services, travel and entertainment and general overhead.

As a result, American Express plans to take a restructuring charge of between $240 million and $290 million in the fourth quarter.

The company has been gearing up for a big restructuring for some time, first announcing in July that it planned to reduce overall costs and staffing levels, and take a related charge during the second half of the year.

"We've been engaged for the past few months in an intensive, companywide review of priorities and staffing levels," said Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive, in a statement. "The re-engineering program we announced today will help us to manage through one of the most challenging economic environments we've seen in many decades. It will also put us in position to ramp up investment spending as economic conditions improve so that we can take advantage of the substantial opportunities that will be available to us over the medium to long term."

Last week, American Express reported a better-than-expected 24 percent decline in third-quarter profit. But the report echoed recent results from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Capital One Financial Corp. showing that the credit card environment is worsening as cardholders have trouble paying off debt and pull back their spending.

Even a company like American Express, which prides itself on catering to a more well-heeled clientele, is not immune.

The company's customers tend to be more affluent than those of other card companies, but they are more heavily concentrated in California and Florida, where the slumping housing market is taking a toll. American Express also has a higher percentage of small-business customers, and small businesses tend to miss payments more than individuals, executives have said.

"Cardmember spending is likely to remain soft," Chenault said in a statement last week. "Loan growth will be restrained, in part because of the steps we are taking to reduce credit risks, and credit indicators are likely to reflect the continued downturn in the economy and throughout the housing sector."

American Express has been able to finance its operations amid the tight credit markets, but the efforts have been tougher and more costly.

Shares rose $1.23, or 4.9 percent, to $26.44 in morning trading. Shares have traded between $20.50 and $61.55 in the past 12 months.

Sheriff won't boot evictees

An Illinois lawman tells deputies to stop evicting renters living in foreclosed homes. Why he's angry

Dayumm!!!! The Dow ends at 504.48 points lower -- its worst point drop in more than seven years -

Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old investment bank choked by the credit crisis and falling real estate values, filed for Chapter 11 protection in the biggest bankruptcy filing ever and said it was trying to sell off key business units. Bank of America Corp. said it is snapping up Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in a $50 billion all-stock transaction.

Stock markets fell and Treasury bond prices soared, though investors had a measured response to some of the biggest economic news in modern U.S. history. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 250 points _ a number that has become almost commonplace over the past year amid the ongoing troubles in the financial sector. oh yea John McCain quickly got hammered by Barack Obama on Monday when he declared that the "fundamentals of our economy are still strong" at an event in Jacksonville, Florida.

LAWD!!! HOUSES SELLING FOR $1.00??????

One dollar can get you a large soda at McDonald's, a used VHS movie at 7-Eleven or a house in Detroit.

The fact that a home on the city's east side was listed for $1 recently shows how depressed the real estate market has become in one of America's poorest big cities.

And it still took 19 days to find a buyer.
The sale price of the home may be an anomaly, but illustrates both the depths of the foreclosure crisis in Detroit and the rapid scuttling of vacant homes in some of the city's impoverished neighborhoods.

The home, at 8111 Traverse Street, a few blocks from Detroit City Airport, was the nicest house on the block when it sold for $65,000 in November 2006, said neighbor Carl Upshaw. But the home was foreclosed last summer, and it wasn't long until "the vultures closed in," Upshaw said. "The siding was the first to go. Then they took the fence. Then they broke in and took everything else."

The company hired to manage the home and sell it, the Bearing Group, boarded up the home only to find the boards stolen and used to board up another abandoned home nearby.

Scrappers tore out the copper plumbing, the furnace and the light fixtures, taking everything of value, including the kitchen sink.

"It about doesn't make sense to put the family out," Upshaw said. "Once people are gone, you're gonna lose the house in this neighborhood."

Tuesday, the home was wide open. Doors leading into the kitchen and the basement were missing, and the front windows had been smashed. Weeds grew chest-high, and charred remains marked a spot where the garage recently burned.

Put on the market in January for $1,100, the house had no lookers other than the squatters who sometimes stayed there at night. Facing $4,000 in back taxes and a large unpaid water bill, the bank that owned the property lowered the price to $1.
$1 sale to cost bank $10,000

While it's not unusual for $1 to be exchanged when property is transferred for legal reasons, listing a home in the Multiple Listing Service for $1 was surprising and unsettling to Kent Colpaert, the listing real estate agent for the property.

"I've never seen a home listed for $1," Colpaert said.

"But it's been hit hard: It's just a shell."

On Tuesday, Realtor.com listed one other single-family home, one duplex and one empty lot at $1 in Detroit.

Dollar property sales are the financial hangover from the foreclosure crisis, said Anthony Viola of Realty Corp. of America in Cleveland.

Lenders that made loans to unqualified buyers during the height of the subprime market now find themselves the owners of whole neighborhoods of vacant, deteriorating homes.

"No one has much sympathy for these banks that made subprime loans," Viola said. "And in some cities like Cleveland, judges aren't letting them sit on the properties -- they're ordering them to tear them down or sell them."

So desperate was the bank owner of 8111 Traverse Street to unload the property that it agreed to pay $2,500 in sales commission and another $1,000 bonus for closing the $1 sale; the bank also will pay $500 of the buyer's closing costs. Throw in back taxes and a water bill, and unloading the house will cost the bank about $10,000.

"It doesn't make sense in some neighborhoods to keep paying costs and costs," Colpaert said. "It can make more financial sense to give it away."
Buyer calls it an investment

Colpaert declined to provide the name of the prospective purchaser, because the deal had not been through closing. The agent did say that the buyer agreed to pay the full list price of $1, and planned to pay cash.

The buyer, a local woman, considers the home to be an investment property and will not live there, Colpaert said, though exactly how soon the buyer can expect to recoup her four-quarter investment is questionable. Replacing the guts of the house will costs tens of thousands of dollars, and the owner will have trouble keeping scrappers from stealing the improvements as quickly as they're installed. Home demolition costs about $5,000, Colpaert said.

Meanwhile, the new owner will owe $3,900 in property taxes in 2009 on her dollar purchase unless she challenges the tax assessment.

While selling a home for the amount of change most people could find between their couch cushions is unusual, some abandoned homes in Detroit sell for $100; vacant lots can be purchased for $300.

"My 14-year-old son could buy a block of Detroit property," said Ann Laciura, senior servicing specialist for the Bearing Group.