National business briefs

nation

WASHINGTON — It’s about to become official: The recession is over — but not the pain. The government will release figures this week expected to show that the economy has awakened from its deepest slump since the 1930s and is in the early stages of a recovery. But the following week, the government will issue another set of figures expected to show unemployment continuing to rise toward and possibly above a clearly recessionary 10 percent.

LOS ANGELES — City council members tentatively approved a multimillion-dollar proposal Tuesday to tap Google Inc. for government e-mail and other Internet services, a boon for the Web giant as it seeks to wrest market share for office software from rival Microsoft Corp. The council voted unanimously for the $7.2 million deal with contractor Computer Sciences Corp. to replace many city computer systems with the so-called Google Apps services. An amendment added shortly before the vote makes the contract contingent on Computer Science agreeing to pay a preset penalty if a security breach occurs.

WASHINGTON — After weeks of political haggling, the Senate agreed Tuesday to take up legislation that would give people running out of unemployment insurance benefits up to 20 more weeks of federal aid. Senate Democrats, saying that 7,000 people a day are exhausting their benefits, called on their colleagues to move quickly to a final vote. Republicans insisted they get a chance to offer amendments on the benefit bill and other issues. Also in play was the possibility the bill would be used as a vehicle to extend another policy that has been central to the Obama administration’s efforts to revive the economy: an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday embraced a House bill that would give the government unprecedented power to seize bank holding companies and other large financial firms teetering on the brink of collapse and stick their competitors with the cost. In a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Obama said the belief among financial executives that the government would ultimately protect them creates a "perverse incentive” for large firms to take reckless risks. Under Frank’s proposal, a council of regulators would be established to monitor financial firms regarded as so big and influential that their collapse could bring down the entire economy.

WILMINGTON, Del. — Luxury automaker Fisker Automotive is buying a shuttered General Motors assembly plant in Delaware to produce plug-in hybrid electric cars, officials said Tuesday. The California-based company has signed a letter of intent with Motors Liquidation Co., formerly known as General Motors Corp., to purchase the Wilmington plant for $18 million after a four-month evaluation period. Fisker, which recently won approval for $528.7 million in government loans to develop plug-ins, expects to spend another $175 million to refurbish the facility before production of next-generation hybrids begins in 2012.

NEW YORK — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn offered Tuesday to buy certain classes of debt from CIT Group Inc. bondholders as he tries to thwart the commercial lender’s restructuring plan. Icahn said in a letter he will pay those bondholders 60 cents on the dollar for their bonds if they agree to reject CIT’s debt restructuring plan. New York-based CIT is trying to get bondholders to swap existing debt for new debt that matures later and stock. CIT is trying to reduce its near-term debt maturities by $5.7 billion.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A former cashier for The Home Depot who has been wearing a "One nation under God” button on his work apron for more than a year has been fired, he says because of the religious reference. The company claims that expressing such personal beliefs is simply not allowed. Earlier this month, Trevor Keezor began bringing a Bible to read during his lunch break at the store in the rural town of Okeechobee, Fla.. That’s when he says The Home Depot management told him he would have to remove the button. Keezer refused, and he was fired on Oct. 23, he said. A Home Depot spokesman said Keezer was fired because he violated the company’s dress code.

CHICAGO — The housing market and stocks may be looking up, but Americans just can’t shake their job worries. In a sign that talk of an economic recovery has yet to soothe a recession-battered nation, consumer confidence fell in October and came in well below what analysts were expecting. For stores, the reading is reason to worry that holiday sales might be even worse than they feared. In a separate reading, the Conference Board reported shoppers’ sentiments about the state of the economy are the gloomiest in nearly three decades.

DETROIT — Asian automakers are still building the most reliable cars and trucks, with eight of the top 10 brands from Japanese and Korean companies, according to an annual survey by Consumer Reports. But several models from Ford Motor Co. are now consistently scoring above Honda and Toyota. While Toyota’s youth-oriented Scion brand finished first for the second year in a row, several Ford models, including the midsize Ford Fusion, consistently have been at or near the top of their classes, a trend that led Consumer Reports editors to declare that Ford is now making some vehicles with world-class reliability.

NEW YORK— GMAC Financial Services is in talks with the Treasury Department for a third injection of taxpayer aid as the auto lender faces a November deadline to raise the $11.5 billion capital cushion mandated by results of the government’s "stress test” earlier this year. Of the 19 banks that underwent the government’s stress tests, 10 were determined to be undercapitalized. GMAC is the only one of those to not have been able to raise all of its necessary capital from investors.

From wire reports

---

Leave a Comment

Business Photo Galleriesview all