At least 600,000 jobs could go in the UK in 2009, according to a report by a personnel managers’ professional body.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says even those who escape redundancy face pay freezes.
It says that while total unemployment will not hit three million, the time between New Year and Easter will be [...]

Isn’t the market just one big Ponzi scheme?
Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan’s largest brokerage, said it has 27.5 billion yen ($302 million) at risk linked to Bernard Madoff’s investment funds.
Nomura joined firms including Spain’s Banco Santander SA in disclosing investments tied to Madoff, who was arrested Dec. 11 and charged with defrauding investors of as much [...]

Thirty states are at risk of having the funds that pay out unemployment benefits become insolvent over the next few months, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Funds in two states, Indiana and Michigan, have dried up, and both states are borrowing from the federal government to make payments to the jobless. [...]

At least a dozen employees had been celebrating when the gunman, who had been recently laid off, entered the party and began firing a gun, according to Vancouver Police spokesperson Const. Tim Fanning. (CTV)

The U.S. financial services industry is witnessing the bursting of yet another bubble. This time, it’s the industry itself.
Bloated by years of frenzied growth, Wall Street banks and other firms are shedding tens of thousands of jobs and slashing entire divisions in their most drastic downsizing since the Great Depression. The moves promise to upend [...]

Iceland is some deep shit, and not the kind drunken teenagers and techno music can solve.
Trading in the Icelandic krona came to a halt after the government seized control of Kaupthing Bank hf, the nation’s biggest lender, as the financial crisis deepens.
There haven’t been any so-called krona spot trades today, or transactions in which currency [...]

The genius on CNBC notes “we can’t have too many days like this….”
Correct, we can only have about 22 days like this and we’d be at DOW 00000
See, there is a pony in this pile of shit somewhere.  We’re calling the bottom at 8500.  Get out your checkbooks.

Merrill Lynch, the world’s largest broker, agreed to be acquired by Bank of America for $29 a share, or $43.5 billion, after being pressured into a deal by federal regulators.
And this link.