Recovery? What Recovery?

En miljon amerikanska småföretagare riskerar lämnas nu helt utan kredit möjlighet och med enast ytterst små möjligheter att hitta andra lånekällor. Det är företagare som köper varor, hyr lokaler, betalar skatt och har anställda och spridningseffekterna av detta blir naturligtvis avsevärda. Samtidigt stramas kredit villkoren upp för att fler lånetagare vilket ytterligare kommer att ge dessa en ansträngd situation.

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Advanta Corp., the credit-card issuer for small businesses, may leave 1 million customers scrounging to find new lenders and debt holders facing losses of 35 percent after the company shut down accounts to preserve capital.

Advanta was the 11th-biggest U.S. credit-card issuer at the end of 2008 with about $5 billion in outstanding balances, and the only major lender focused on small business borrowers, Robertson said. In the first quarter the company slashed the workforce by about 300 employees, or 36 percent, from 841 as of Dec. 31, 2008. Calls inquiring about the future of current employees weren’t returned.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_FhoI2A4ZsM

Senate Nears Completing Credit Card Bill, Blocks 15% Rate Cap
“When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they’re not making credit available, they’re engaged in loan- sharking,” Sanders said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aJONT9_c4wwc

American Express Will Slash 4,000 Jobs, Take Charge
The cuts, in addition to 7,000 job eliminations announced in October, may save about $2 billion in expenses this year, the company said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOyi3wlctams&refer=worldwide

Recession outlasts even extended jobless benefits
Precise figures are hard to determine, but Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute, estimates that up to 700,000 people could exhaust their extended benefits by the second half of this year.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Recession-outlasts-even-apf-14852191.html/print

Americans Feel 15.6% Unemployment as Underemployment Surges
“We’re seeing many more people who are losing their connectedness to the labor force,” said Reich, who served in President Bill Clinton’s Cabinet and is now an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. “There is a profound weakening of ties to the labor market among a large portion of our working-age population.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=apllk4murp0I

Recovery? What Recovery?
Don't tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. My faith in an imminent recovery deserted me on May 5, when one of our customers, Salyer American Foods, based in Monterey, Calif., suddenly fell into receivership. There had been little to no indication that the company was so close to financial ruin
http://www.newsweek.com/id/196007

Almost a Quarter of U.S. Homeowners Are Underwater
About 21.8 percent of all owners were underwater as of March 31, the Seattle-based real estate data service said in a report today. At the end of the fourth quarter, 17.6 percent of homeowners owed more than their original mortgage, while 14.3 percent had negative equity three months earlier.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=alObJoQNAz.E

Samtidigt anser Nobel pristagaren Paul Kreugman att ekonomin nu vänt. Det måste vara annat än den verkliga reala ekonomin han talar om? Frågan är bara vilken? Måste vara Rockefeller som är glad över att JP Morgan kan hållas unde armarna med kockta böcker?

Krugman ser ljuset
Jag delar optimismen att det värsta kan vara över. Vad som är riktigt svårt är emellertid att säga när läget på allvar går från stabilisering till återhämtning", sa Krugman enligt Korea Times.
http://di.se/Avdelningar/Artikel.aspx?ArticleID=2009\05\19\338101&sectionid=Ettan