Posts Tagged ‘Chrysler’
May 13th, 2009 | 
Author: A just released report by the Commerce Department shows that retail sales unexpectedly dropped by 0.4% in April, following a revised drop of 1.3% in March and analysts contributed the drop to the biggest loss of household wealth on record, falling home values and rising unemployment.
Most economists had predicted that retail sales would rise by 0.2% after a 1% decrease a month earlier.
Bill Cheney, who is the chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. said in an interview that, “The second quarter is going to be tough. Consumers are losing their jobs, concerned about losing their jobs and losing wealth”.
Mike Niemira who is the chief economist at ICSC was a little bit less downbeat and said, “We’re still working our way through the slowdown. I think it will get better as the year progresses. The month of May will still be tough and I suspect by the summer that things will be a little broader in terms of the improvement”.
The decline in sales was led by falling demand at furniture, clothing, grocery and electronics’ stores, and even as fuel prices rose, receipts at service stations fell, indicating perhaps that Americans were driving less.
Clothing sales fell by 0.5% and sales at general-merchandise stores fell by 0.1%.
Auto sales unexpectedly gained by 0.2% after dropping by 2% in March, with automobiles selling at a 9.3 million annual pace in April, compared with a 9.9 million rate in March.
Chrysler, whose U.S. whose sales were down by 48% from the same month last year, started offering rebates of up to $6,000 on May 6 and the offers will continue until the end of the month.
The Labor Department reported last week that payrolls fell by 539,000 workers last month making it the smallest drop since October, but it took the unemployment rate to 8.9%, which is the highest level since 1983 and economists expect it to average 9.6% in 2010.
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Posted in auto sales, automakers, Chrysler, Commerce Department, consumer, consumer confidence, crisis, economists, financial crisis, home prices, house prices, job losses, jobless rate, labor department, layoffs, property values, recession, retail sales, retailers, Unemployment, unemployment rate, US economy | 
Tags: auto sales, automakers, Chrysler, Commerce Department, consumer, consumer confidence, crisis, economists, financial crisis, home prices, house prices, job losses, jobless rate, labor department, layoffs, property values, recession, retail sales, retailers, Unemployment, unemployment rate, US economy | 
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The top 10 recipients of the government’s $700 billion financial bailout plan (TALF) paid lobbyists around $9.5 million during the first three months of this year.
GM (General Motors Corp.) which just announced that it will most likely default on a $1 billion bond payment that’s due June 1, spent $2.8 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009.
GM has already received $13.4 billion in government loans and is pushing for an additional $5 billion.
Other bailout recipients that spent more than $1million in an attempt to influence future government decisions were;
- A.I.G – which has already received $70 billion
- Citigroup Inc. – 45 billion
- JPMorgan Chase & Co. – $25 billion
- Bank of America Corp., received $5 billion and spent $660,000 on lobbying which is 20% down from the last quarter of 2008.
- Wells Fargo & Company, $25 billion in bailout money, and $700,000 on lobbying.
- Goldman Sachs, received $10 billion and spent $670,000
- Morgan Stanley got $10 billion and spent $540,000
- U.S. Bancorp got $6.6 billion and paid out $170,000
- PNC Financial Services Group, received $7.8 billion and spent $135,000 which is almost double its last quarter’s lobbying costs.
The companies in question deny using bailout money for lobbying, but seven of them spent more attempting to influence the government than they did in the last quarter of 2008, and Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said “It’s completely unjustifiable. They say they’re not using public money for these purposes, but in effect these companies are steering taxpayer funds to lobbying, and campaign contributions”, and added, “What AIG’s reporting is, in fact, influence peddling”.
Posted in administration, AIG, American International Group, automakers, banking system, Chrysler, Citigroup, crisis, depression, economy, financial crisis, GM, government, Lobbying, politics, TALF, Treasury, US banks |
Tags: administration, AIG, American International Group, automakers, banking system, Chrysler, Citigroup, crisis, depression, economy, financial crisis, GM, government, Lobbying, politics, TALF, Treasury, US banks |
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