A Question Of Being In Control Unfairly or not, Cadbury Schweppes is starting to look like a company at the mercy of external events, rather than one dictating its own destiny – and it’s not just rising milk prices. T... Read Full Article IPhone Trademark Lawsuit Cisco Systems sues Apple for infringing its ’iPhone’ trademark, which the networking giant says it has owned since 2000.... Read Full Article Jimmy Choo Strikes Against M’amp;S Marks & Spencer must destroy thousands of handbags after Jimmy Choo, the designer brand, threatened it with legal action. The high street giant was forced to agree a cash settlement and withdraw fro... Read Full Article Highway Exhaust Stunts Lung Growth, Study Finds A new study suggests that children who grow up within a third of a mile of a freeway may be sustaining permanent respiratory problems.... Read Full Article The Saturday Profile: Japanese Author Guides Women To ?Dignity,? But Others See Dullness Mariko Bando’s book, ?The Dignity of a Woman,? has become one of Japan’s biggest best sellers in decades, but critics say it reinforces the view that women should be subservient.... Read Full Article |
Integrity NewsBen Bernanke stops short of saying American economy is in recessionBen Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, came his closest yet to conceding that the American economy may already have slipped into recession.<br/> <br/> In gloomy testimony to Congress yesterday, Mr Bernanke admitted that the US faced a grim first half to the year thanks to its housing slump and the global credit crunch. “It now appears likely that GDP will not grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly. . . Clearly, the US economy is going through a very difficult period,” he told the Joint Economic Committee.<br/> <br/> However, asked whether he believed that America was now in recession, he sidestepped the question: “Recession is possible, but recession is a technical term. . . I’m not ready to say whether or not the US economy will face such a situation.”<br/> <br/> “It’s clearly a period of very slow growth extending back to the fourth quarter of last year, and we are trying to set our policies appropriately for that situation,” Mr Bernanke added.<br/> <br/> “Our estimates are that we are slightly growing at the moment, but we think that there’s a chance that for the first half as a whole, there might be a slight contraction.”<br/> <br/> Despite his bleak assessment of immediate prospects, Mr Bernanke did little to buoy market hopes that the Fed would follow up on its recent, aggressive cuts in interest rates with further, early moves. The Fed’s policy-making Open Market Committee next meets to decide rates on April 30.<br/> <br/> Instead, he dampened optimism that fresh rate cuts were a “done deal” by predicting that the Fed’s past action should have set the stage for some US recovery in the second half, and pointing to persistent inflation as a “source of concern”. Some measures of future inflation expected by businesses and consumers had risen, he noted, while uncertainty about the inflation outlook had increased.<br/> <br/> The Fed chief said that, bolstered by the central bank’s cuts in official interest rates to just 2.25 per cent, and the Government’s $168 billion stimulus package of tax rebates, the world$’s biggest economy should revive in the autumn. “Much necessary economic and financial adjustment has already taken place, and monetary and fiscal policies are in train that should support a return to growth,” he said.<br/> <br/> “We expect economic activity to strengthen in the second half of the year, in part as the result of stimulative monetary and fiscal policies.”<br/> <br/> However, he also acknowledged that the economic landscape was strewn with risks that threaten this scenario for recovery.<br/> <br/> While the Fed’s groundbreaking measures to pump extra liquidity into money markets had appeared “to have helped stabilise the situation somewhat”, Mr Bernanke did little to quell fears that the credit crisis is worsening. He emphasised that financial markets remained “under considerable stress”.<br/> <br/> Credit was restricted because of large losses and writedowns at many financial institutions, and lenders were still wary of providing capital in the interbank market, he noted. Nonfinancial businesses, however, continued to have strong balance sheets and were not facing liquidity problems. While the market for mortgages conforming to federal standards had begun to recover, nonconforming mortgages still faced market problems.<br/> <br/> The Fed chairman came under intense questioning from Democratic Congress members over the decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the stricken investment bank. Mr Bernanke defended the moves, and the Fed’s provision of $30 billion for JP Morgan Chase to take over Bear. $“With financial conditions fragile, the sudden failure of Bear Stearns likely would have led to a chaotic unwinding of positions in those markets and could have severely shaken confidence,” he said. “The damage caused by a default by Bear Stearns could have been severe and extremely difficult to contain. . . We did not bail out Bear Stearns. We did what. . . was necessary to maintain the integrity and viability of the financial system.”<br/> <br/> While Mr Bernanke said the financial risk to the Fed in taking on suspect securities as collateral for its lending over the Bear rescue was nowhere near the potential $29 billion on its books (JP Morgan would shoulder the first $1 billion of any losses), he told the committee: $“I’d hope not to ever do it again.”Read Full Article Music Review: Composing on the Spot, With Help From a MasterLee Konitz is a certifiable jazz legend, with peerless high-modernist credentials and an integrity equal to his talent.Read Full Article A Pianist Bids Farewell With Schubertian GraceThe Austrian pianist ended the New York chapter of his 60-year career displaying undiminished focus and utter integrity at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday.Read Full Article Music Review | Alfred Brendel: A Pianist Bids Farewell With Schubertian GraceThe Austrian pianist ended the New York chapter of his 60-year career displaying undiminished focus and utter integrity at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday.Read Full Article HP Builds Blade System for Memory Intensive AppsHewlett-Packard is beefing up its Integrity BladeSystems with a new model released this week that’s intended to handle memory and CPU intensive applications.Read Full Article External News for: integrity2009 American Music Awards: An ego-centric detriment to the integrity of the ... - Examiner.comExaminer.com2009 American Music Awards: An ego-centric detriment to the integrity of the ...Examiner.comYet another in a string of self-righteous back-patting awards shows, The 37th Annual American Music Awards leeches its way to television this Sunday, ...and more »2009 American Music Awards: An ego-centric detriment to the integrity of the ... - Examiner.comExaminer.com2009 American Music Awards: An ego-centric detriment to the integrity of the ...Examiner.comYet another in a string of self-righteous back-patting awards shows, The 37th Annual American Music Awards leeches its way to television this Sunday, ...and more »Over-paid footballers lack integrity – sports ethics expert - WalesOnlineSydney Morning HeraldOver-paid footballers lack integrity – sports ethics expertWalesOnline... needed virtue to a sport too often characterised by vice. Integrity, generosity and magnanimity, however, are endangered species in professional football.'Cheated' Irish call for World Cup replayCNN'Hand of Shame' sparks debate on cheating, replaysThe Associated PressIrish FA requests replaySkySportsThe Press Association -stv.tv -IrishExaminer.comall 5,695 news articles »2009 American Music Awards: An ego-centric detriment to the integrity of the ... - Examiner.comExaminer.com2009 American Music Awards: An ego-centric detriment to the integrity of the ...Examiner.comYet another in a string of self-righteous back-patting awards shows, The 37th Annual American Music Awards leeches its way to television this Sunday, ...and more »Over-paid footballers lack integrity – sports ethics expert - WalesOnlineSydney Morning HeraldOver-paid footballers lack integrity – sports ethics expertWalesOnline... needed virtue to a sport too often characterised by vice. Integrity, generosity and magnanimity, however, are endangered species in professional football.'Cheated' Irish call for World Cup replayCNN'Hand of Shame' sparks debate on cheating, replaysThe Associated PressIrish FA requests replaySkySportsThe Press Association -stv.tv -IrishExaminer.comall 5,695 news articles »New PMA chair issues call for manufacturing integrity - American Metal MarketNew PMA chair issues call for manufacturing integrityAmerican Metal MarketGretchen Zierick, president of Zierick Manufacturing Corp., Mount Kisco, NY, has been selected to chair the Precision Metalforming Association's board of ...and more » |
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