Monday, March 16, 2009

Quick Overview

  • Ben Bernanke predicts that America's worst recession in decades will likely end this year before a recovery gathers steam in 2010.

  • U.S. industrial production fell 1.4% in February -- the lowest level in seven years.

  • U.S. capacity utilization fell to 70.9%.

  • The New York Fed’s regional index of manufacturing fell from -34.65 to -38.23.

  • OPEC met and decided to keep the official production quota unchanged

  • OPEC expects world oil demand to total 84.6 million barrels per day in 2009,

  • In 2008 Canada’s industrial capacity utilization was at 77.8%.

  • YoY consumer prices in the Euro area rose 1.2% in February.

  • Obama said he has instructed Geithner to “pursue every single legal avenue” to block bonuses to the ailing AIG insurer’s executives.

  • President Obama announced a permanent ban on the slaughter of cows too sick or weak to stand on their own for use in human food.

  • China has entered a free trade agreement on service trade with Pakistan.

  • Vikram Pandit was paid almost $11 million to lead Citigroup in a year that the troubled US bank required $45 billion in handouts from the taxpayer.

  • Millionaires who agreed to hefty divorce settlements during the economic boom are seeking to renegotiate the terms of the agreements now that the recession has hit.

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