What Does a Recession Look Like?

Airbus already has plans to outsource half of its new-generation planes such as the A350.

Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, has called the soaring euro "life-threatening". But this can also be seen as a way of preparing the unions to accept even more swingeing job cuts than the 10,000 planned under the Power8 restructuring programme. This was drawn up on the assumption that the euro would remain at about $1.35 and included proposals to sell off eight plants or attract risk-sharing investors such as GKN at Filton, near Bristol. But these have been put on hold because of the rising euro and relatively poor offers, raising fears in the French media that more than 15,000 jobs are at risk in Europe.

Joaquín Almunia, the EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, has shaved the European commission's eurozone growth forecast for 2008 to close to 2%. read more

Microfinance Boosts the Poor

Call it what you want, but this was no update-it was, and is a Budget, a very political one at that.

Why does Dion keep allowing himself to be politically snookered? Yesterday, almost during the reading, Duceppe and Layton already staked out their positions and would vote NO for the budget-leaving Dion as the Harper/Flaherty Kingmaker, or goat responsible for calling an election.

We know Layton wants an election now and with reason (gain of 10 seats from LPC) but perhaps Duceppe doesn't want to go to the polls right now.

Watch for a fast and furious slate of laws that the CPC will bring forward. Dion will continue to have NO choice, then a spring or fall CPC engineered election 2008 election with the CPC running on their record-and Dion running on what? Social justice? Kyoto?

For the best of the LPC, Dion should vote this down, force an election, let the cards fall where they may, and allow the LPC to find a new leader and FINALLY and RIGHTFULLY renew itself at last. read more

Bank of New England returns to the Merrimack Valley

Amid the growing mortgage-debt crisis, personal bankruptcies nearly doubled in Metro Orlando last year, although they remained far lower than the record levels earlier this decade, according to court figures released this week.

Nearly 7,060 debtors declared insolvency in Orlando's federal bankruptcy court in 2007, up 96 percent from 2006, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida reported.

Fueled by the mortgage crisis, personal bankruptcy is reaching all levels of the income spectrum -- from affluent professionals to lower-income subprime borrowers, bankruptcy lawyers said.

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