Waves of layoffs are going to hit the country as banks tighten lending and companies cut costs, BusinessWeek
predicted in an article this week.
Unlike the dot-com and housing busts of recent years, this time just about every industry…
After a tumultuous and historic couple of weeks, culminating Oct. 10-when stocks dropped 800 points as the market opened-investors stood on the edge of the abyss and stopped selling. Market participants arrived at the conclusion that, over that coming weekend, financial chiefs around the world would do whatever it took to rescue the financial system. And they did, by formulating measures to be undertaken by finance leaders across the globe that are unprecedented and wideranging, from supporting the commercial paper…
I was uncomfortably challenged when Faye of the Forest landed on my deck a few days ago wanting to know what all these economic goings-on meant. “I’m responsible for teaching the elves,” she said, “and I don’t know what to tell them.” “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “But here’s what seems to me has happened.” “Some people,” I said, “are unable to make the payments on their mortgages. These mortgages are not held by the banks…
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson promises to buoy Indiana’s slumping rural counties with a three-tiered
incentive plan. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has a different vision for stoking the state economy. He wants to build on Indiana’s
strengths–such as world-class research at universities–to innovate and create jobs.
Charter Homes recruited and paid buyers to take out inflated mortgages on dozens of central Indiana homes it built, promising to manage the properties as rentals and make payments for the owners, current and former Charter business partners say.
A person’s DNA may someday determine how doctors diagnose illness and prescribe affordable treatment. That same genetic makeup also might help doctors determine whether a person suffering from cancer might be predisposed to respond or not respond to chemotherapy or another type of innovative or experimental treatment. That future picture of health care delivery, however, is missing a key piece. It doesn’t address what those advancements might mean for health insurance and other related questions about medical coverage. Our current…
For much of his adult life, Don Main was a rocker rather than a restaurateur. But fate-along with a pressing need to find a more profitable line of work-drove him to seek his fortune in a kitchen rather than onstage. Main, president and co-owner of Puccini’s Smiling Teeth, began his peculiar career change back in 1990, after a decadeand-a-half stint as a professional-but not very well-paid-musician. At age 36, the bassist and lead vocalist for the band The Late Show…
Indiana’s most seasoned entrepreneurs aren’t standing idly by as the nation slides into what many economists believe will
be the deepest recession since the early 1980s.
(Author’s note: I submitted this column Oct. 14, with full knowledge that the world may have come to an end by the time it is published.) It’s swing time. Candidates for office, state and federal, are swinging and slinging mud at one another. In a last-ditch effort to scare voters, Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of hanging out with Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weathermen, a militant group of the 1970s. In reality, by the time Ayers met Obama, his…
Amid all this joyless market watching, this much is clear: The financial markets and the economy are going to get worse before they get better. But market watching is never a healthy sport, especially since it tends to make us lose track of the real economy at times like these. Over the past couple of weeks, the real economy has shown a bit of resilience. And here in Indiana, really great news has been lost in the wake of the…
Small businesses in Indiana stung by rising health care costs now can band together to broker better deals from insurance providers. The rule from the Indiana Department of Insurance took effect in late August and is the final piece of a 2007 health care expansion state lawmakers financed with a 44-cent increase in the cigarette tax. The pooling program is open to businesses with two to 50 employees and is meant to give them strength in numbers so, in essence,…
Area not-for-profits are beginning to feel the sting of the year-old credit crunch, which has escalated into a full-blown
financial crisis that’s battered investors and likely pushed the nation into recession.
With a driver shortage as bad as the freight industry says, one might think operating a truck-driving school would be a license to print money. But proposed federal rules to toughen training standards and, lately, a fishtailing economy could bring a shakeout among schools. There are even rumblings that a few big carriers that contract with driving schools are poised to eliminate tuition reimbursement as they sweat out the economic downturn. “We’re going to start losing schools,” predicted John Priest,…
It will be some months before we know for sure, but I would wager today that the United States is in a recession. Our unemployment rate is at right about the 50-year average, productivity is up, and living standards never have been higher. Even so, the economy likely has been pushed into recession because uncertainty about credit will dramatically slow hiring and production the next few months. Demand for goods also will be affected. This is financial-market mayhem spreading to…
“Geez Morton, lighten up,” was one of the e-mails that came in this week. I find it difficult to do that while our state and national economies are under such stress. Another correspondent wanted an answer to that persistent question, “Are we better off than we were a year ago? Four years ago?” Here is a small part of that answer: At this writing, there are 5.5 million more jobs in the country than four years ago, an increase averaging…
Local companies that rely on credit have seen their borrowing power shrink and in some cases disappear as a deep freeze
in the nation’s credit markets drives fears of a broad economic slowdown. A handful of businesses, including
a Greenwood security firm and an Indianapolis contractor, already have shut down after credit dried up,
and others are on the ropes as troubled banks seek to limit their loan exposure.
Managing the balance sheet. The very phrase is s l e e p – i n d u c i n g . But in times like these, doing it well is what separates the winners from the losers. In the winners’ column is Simon Property Group Inc., which finds itself on the offensive as competitors, including Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc., lean back on their heels. In the losers’ column is Emmis Communications Corp., which is saddled with more…
The word bailout is being used more than the folks at Merriam-Webster ever could have imagined. Yet, bailout is the wrong term to characterize the rescue plan the Federal Reserve and the Treasury presented to Congress. Our leaders have done a poor job explaining why. At present, the U.S. financial system is in cardiac arrest, and this plan is the defibrillator designed to jolt the system back to life. The crux of the problem is that banks and other financial…
Signs of hope as many retreat Some shrug off economic fears The front page of this week’s IBJ tells of companies that are in dire straits-or out of business-after banks, jittery about a financial collapse, called their loans or canceled their credit line. Stories like these put a local face on the economic crisis that has gripped the American psyche in the last two weeks unlike anything since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Anyone who didn’t realize credit’s vital role…
A rush of government-aided acquisitions has bestowed a too-big-to-fail halo over the likes of JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup. But what about the formidable regional banks that operate more than half the bank branches in the Indianapolis area? How stable are banks like National City, Huntington, Fifth Third, Key, M&I and Regions? Their shares have endured a rough ride on Wall Street, but there’s little evidence the ups and downs reflect the true health of the institutions….
