Word: sectoral
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...core of the mounting concerns about deflation is this: the global financial system is going through a vicious process of deleveraging. Financial institutions are reducing debt and raising capital, either directly from governments or from private-sector sources. By desperately trying to rebuild their battered balance sheets and regain some semblance of investor confidence, banks and investment banks are not doing much lending. Indeed, the definition of deleveraging is reducing debt relative to assets. Assets, for banks, are loans. And these days pretty much everyone is deleveraging...
...courts to bless it," says David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America. "It was a very flexible reorganization process." It was also a uniquely American answer to business failure. The private sector took the lead. Reinvention--and rebirth--was the goal. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
First came the financial sector. Bankruptcy has never really worked for banks, because mere rumors that a bank is headed for failure can drive it under. That's why Congress long ago created a separate regulatory system and reorganization process for banks, with the Fed and the fdic at the center. Over the past quarter-century, though, a "shadow banking system" of investment firms, hedge funds and derivatives dealers grew up that was subject to the same risks as banks but not the same rules. In September, Lehman Brothers, a major cog in this system, filed for Chapter...
...danger zone. "If they cut any more, they won't have enough to even come close to making their number," he says. "They have to sell enough to pay the electric bill." Likewise, retailers are ratcheting down staffing. College kids might have to look for jobs outside the retail sector to generate extra Christmas cash. Best Buy is bringing in 16,000 to 20,000 holiday hires this season, down from 26,000 in 2007. (The good news for hopeful or clueless males: Victoria's Secret and Toys "R" Us say they'll keep last year's levels to ensure...
...dollars from Washington, bankruptcy would mean total liquidation, not the restructuring that many experts argue is the only real way to fix the industry. Given the complex, interdependent system of auto-parts suppliers, analysts warn that the loss of one of the Big Three could take down the entire sector - and with it some 2.5 million U.S. jobs - in a cascade effect...