Archive for July 1st, 2009

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama’s White House staff appears to be safe from a tax increase, for now.The White House on Wednesday issued its annual report to Congress listing the salaries of all staff, revealing that everyone gets paid less than 200,000.During the election campaign, Obama promised no income tax increase for anyone making… »

NEW YORK: The housing bust has finally clobbered super-pricey Manhattan home prices.Reports released Thursday by four major New York brokers show that prices cratered during the three months that ended June 30.Prices fell between 13% and 19% compared with the same quarter last year. The brokers found median prices that ranged from 795,000 to 849,000…. »

DETROIT (Reuters) — Auto seating supplier Lear Corp. said on Wednesday it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a reorganization supported by key secured lenders and bondholders and that it had obtained 500 million in bankruptcy financing.Lear (LEA, Fortune 500), which had been in talks with its lenders since late June, said… »

NEW YORK: Stress tests. Massive government interventions. Speculation that the government would nationalize Citigroup and Bank of America.Suffice it to say that the first half of 2009 was anything but normal for the usually sleepy U.S. banking sector. But even as some sense of calm has returned, there are few indications that lenders will make… »

NEW YORK: General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson has argued this week that a bankruptcy court needs to approve plans to create a new GM, one unburdened by many of the contracts and liabilities of the past.But there are many auto industry experts who question whether Henderson, who has worked at GM ever since graduating from… »

NEW YORK: Today the government will begin offering a repayment plan that lets graduates reduce their monthly student loan payments based on their income. It’s called the income based repayment plan and it’s available to borrowers who took out federal loans or used a federal consolidation loan to combine their debt. 1. Advantages … »

NEW YORK (Fortune) — “More people go with Visa” — the company’s slogan may hold true for credit card holders, but it’s a tougher sell for stock pickers who wonder how safe the business is during a recession.Many industry watchers say Visa has been surprisingly resilient during the current chaos, and investor concerns are overstated… »

NEW YORK: Ford Motor reported a modest decline in U.S. sales in June, feeding hopes that the industry may have finally turned the corner following the dramatic drop in sales that forced two of Ford’s rivals into bankruptcy.Ford’s June sales declined 11% from a year earlier, the smallest year-over-year decline since February 2008. Ford’s sales… »

NEW YORK: The Obama administration is widening its mortgage refinancing program to allow more borrowers hit hard by falling home prices to take part.Borrowers whose loans are now worth up to 125% of their home’s value are now eligible to refinance their homes under the Obama foreclosure prevention plan announced in February. Previously, the limit… »

NEW YORK: Last I checked, the economy’s still in recession, unemployment is rising, and consumers are having trouble paying their bills. But you wouldn’t know this from looking at what’s going on in the credit card world lately.The First National Bank of the U.S., aka Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), recently jacked up the rates on… »