Entries for the ‘Market Madness’ Category

French workers hold bosses at Caterpillar plant

Angry French workers facing layoffs at a Caterpillar factory detained four of their bosses Tuesday at the U.S. manufacturer’s plant in the Alps and refused to let them leave the premises, union representatives said.
It is the third time in several weeks that French workers have seized their bosses to protest job losses as a result [...]

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HSBC May Lay Off 1,200 U.K. Workers

The British division of HSBC, HSBC Holdings said Wednesday that it may lay off as many as 1,200 staff following a review of operations.
The affected staff represent about 2% of HSBC’s 58,000 employees in Britain. (TheStreet.com)

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Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street

A year ago, it was hardly unthinkable that a math wizard like David X. Li might someday earn a Nobel Prize. After all, financial economists—even Wall Street quants—have received the Nobel in economics before, and Li’s work on measuring risk has had more impact, more quickly, than previous Nobel Prize-winning contributions to the field. [...]

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Arnold doesn’t like this script

Tuesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration started issuing 20,000 layoff notices to state workers. But there’s a loophole: 95,000 workers who belong to the state’s largest employee union are exempt. (MSNBC)

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UB screwdd in UK too!

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 [...]

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Nomura Has 27.5 Billion Yen at Risk Linked to Madoff

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 [...]

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My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf

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. [...]

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Police allege sacked employee killed his former boss

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)

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The financial apocalypse

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 [...]

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I’d rather have a Corona

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 [...]

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