Jan. 23: Wall Street Off Earlier Lows on Tech
Associated Press
Transcript
[Music] investor ambivalence about corporate earnings left Wall Street with a mixed day better than expected results from Google helped technology shares but lackluster numbers from General Electric reinforced investor concerns about the depths of the recession while the 46% drop in GE earnings met wall Street's Lowered Expectations investors are worried the company might reduce its dividend or lose its coveted AAA credit rating GE shares closed down a145 at $123 the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 45 points at 8,077 the standard and Po's 500 closed up four at 832 the NASDAQ composite index gained 12 at 1477 another corporate news The Wall Street Journal is reporting that drug maker fizer is in talks to acquire rival wyth in a deal valued of more than 60 billion citing unidentified sources the journal said the discussions have been going on for months but that the deal is not imminent Mark hamri the Associated Press
Obama Asks Lawmakers to Back Stimulus Bill
Associated Press
Transcript
with slow sales leading to fresh layoffs and stocks again slumping as corporate red ink spreads barack obama held his first meeting as president with congressional leaders his message his rescue plan can't pass a day too soon we are experiencing a unprecedented perhaps economic crisis that has to be dealt with and dealt with rapidly congress is moving with dispatch the house panels cleared the tax cut portion of the plan while other lawmakers hash out details of the big news spending on public works energy and health care house speaker nancy pelosi says things are coming together i have good feeling about coming out of the meeting that we'll be able to reach more bipartisanship as we go forward however republicans think the plan is too costly and heavy on spending they say borrowing will balloon we believe that spending nearly a trillion dollars is is really more than what we ought to be putting on the backs of our kids and their kids meantime obama says he knows it's a heavy lift to move something so big so fast i recognize that there are still some differences around the table and between the administration and members of congress about particular details on the plan but aides say those gaps aren't so big they can't be closed since the inauguration gop dissent on this plan has grown louder and it's still far from clear the president will get the big bipartisan votes he wants however with economic storm clouds growing darker by the day even top republicans acknowledge obama is destined to get the plan he wants when he wants it mark smith the associated press the white house
Thain Resignation Raises Accountability Issue
Associated Press
Transcript
with the nation's Financial system teetering John F's resignation from Bank of America is again raising the issue of accountability F left under pressure from CEO Kenneth Lewis after report surfaced that he rushed out billions in bonus payments to Mira Lynch employees just before Bank of America took it over shortly thereafter Bank of America sought $20 billion in taxpayer back loans to protect it from going under it certainly does seem scandalous because Bank of America presum made this transaction with some government pressure uh at a time when it thought it had a clear understanding of what sort of losses Merill was facing the news comes just months after American International Group also a recipient of the $700 billion Financial rescue plan spent about a half million dollars for an executive Retreat analysts say the sequence of events points to a deeply ingrained culture of entitlement a culture that both the government and the banks will have to re in as they come to grips with their failures President Barack Obama tackled the issue on Friday saying any legislation governing the remaining $350 billion in tarp funds must include new measures to ensure accountability and transparency it really does create a much harder job a sales job for the Obama Administration at this point because any sympathy uh that was out there for Wall Street is rapidly disappearing major US Banks have started pairing back comp compensation in the face of collapse but considering that their problem started snowballing in late 2007 Cuts have been slow incoming Mark hamr the Associated Press
Women and the recession
CNN
Transcript
Are women being hurt disproportionately by this recession? What we're seeing just now is not that women are being hit more than men in this recession. It's still likely that more men will lose their jobs than women will. But what we are seeing is that this recession is going to affect women more than previous downturns ever have done. When we look at the sectors that are being hit in this recession, particularly because of the credit crunch, we can see a wide range of economic sectors, retail, service sector, as well as construction and manufacturing, traditional areas that are dominated by male jobs. We also know that women's income now is a far greater proportion of household income than it has been in previous downturns. So across Western economies, we're going to see women's wages mattering more to more families. And as women lose their jobs, it's going to have more of an impact than it has done in previous recessions. And of course now we have more women across the world in work than we have ever seen before. In the UK, the employment rate for women in the last recession was around about 67%. It's now up to 70%. There are more women in jobs. More women are going to feel the effects of this downturn. Do you fear that during this recession we are going to wipe out the gains of the last two decades in terms of women entering the workforce? I very much hope not. And the longer term projections for the sectors where women's jobs have been concentrated are probably better than some sectors that have been concentrated. I think that the sectors have been affected in the past. So if you look at previous recessions, some manufacturing industries have been very badly affected and have never recovered. The longer term prospects for areas of work dominated by female jobs, retailer services, are probably better. But what it is important to say is that women are still economically disadvantaged. Women are disproportionately likely to be in very low paid jobs. Women are concentrated in sectors of work that are very low paid. It's 20% of women in the UK working secretarial jobs, for example. So there's a big challenge here. First of all, to make sure we don't wipe out progress, but also to make sure that we use the opportunities that present themselves as we move back into recovery to challenge some of the ongoing disadvantage that women face. Will there be new training schemes and will those be available to women as well as men? Will there be more opportunities for women to move into sectors of the economy where they haven't been dominant before? Apprenticeships. In the UK we've seen large numbers of apprenticeships announced. Well, 2% of apprentices in engineering are women. You know, this is a well-paid trade that more women could be working in and this might be an opportunity to enable more women to progress in these areas. So you're really asking, you're saying to women, look, if you don't want to be affected by these recessions, recession-proof your profession. And as you're saying, leave the secretarial pool and go and be an electrician, a firefighter, a plumber. Well, not necessarily, but just that we have to bear in mind when we're thinking about a response to recession that women will be affected differently to men and that women are already disproportionately disadvantaged in the labour market. And there's ongoing inequalities that we need to think about tackling with our responses. Another example is flexible working. You know, we think this is a great opportunity for more employers to start offering flexible working opportunities. A downturn, that can actually be good for business. It can give people more control over their staff hours, more options for varying staff hours without making redundancies. And in the longer term it can mean that more women can enter a wider range of jobs because they have a wider range of opportunities open to them. So, I think that's a great opportunity for us to think about how we can make sure that we're not just a temporary job that's going to be a temporary job. And I think that's a great opportunity for us to think about that's going to be a temporary job that's going to be a temporary job