| Issues 2008
The world's banks issued a record amount of equity in the second half of the year as they sought funds for large deals and rebuilt their balance sheets in the wake of the global credit squeeze. According to data from Dealogic, commercial and investment banks raised equity worth $83bn in the final six months of 2007... an increase of more than 20% on the same period last year, and more than was issued by the banking sector in all of 2005... The figures underline a growing shift in the banking sector towards issuing equity as lenders grapple with turmoil in the credit markets and the need to consolidate assets previously stored in off-balance sheet vehicles." January 2 - Telegraph (Ben Harrington): "The amount of bonds issued by companies fell by 8% last year as the fallout from credit crunch wreaked havoc in debt markets.
Is it the end for shopping fever?
But, like her fellow Britons, Hall is now facing a debt pile as big as her ironing stack; she knew she had to stop shopping when she counted 93 items in her basket. 'My clothes had encroached on my partner's side and on the top of the chest of drawers there were 3ft towers of ironing I had no space to put away. There were hundreds and hundreds of items.' But if Shopaholics Anonymous was to open a branch in your town, it would be a broad church. While Hall's habit was extreme, many Britons are facing up to the toll that being high-street junkies has taken on their finances. For more than a decade, shoppers have turned out, month after month, to spend their hard-earned cash, driven by the whims of fast fashion and the interior design tips proffered by home makeover programmes. But living costs are now rising faster than any time in the past decade: so whether it's filling the tank, your monthly mortgage payment or a trip to the supermarket, the spare cash we used to burn in Topshop or on the latest album release at HMV is dwindling.
Rojas's Rcrd Lbl: Free Song Downloads and Hold the Ad Clutter
In a FAQ on the site, Rojas and company ask people who syndicate tracks to outside blogs to take the whole widget rather than just host MP3s themselves. "We support the site and pay our artists through advertising and sponsorships, and the only way we can do that is if people visit the site or embed our widgets," the FAQ pleads. Rcrd Lbl isn't the first company to offer music promotion and downloads in a blog format; nor is it the first to offer ad-supported song downloads. Free download service SpiralFrog launched two months ago with a small handful of major labels agreeing to let it represent their catalogs. The company has been heavily criticized however for the Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions it places on downloaded tracks, as well as for its incompatibility with Apple's ubiquitous iPod.
McCain spokesman John King of CNN
The e-mail flood started out we caught you guys, we never did trust you. That kind of thing. I think it is a very interesting dynamic. I saw middle-aged women just throw their arms around Barack Obama, kiss him hard on the cheek and say, you know, I'm with you, good luck. And i think he feels it, too.Dana Milbank, The Washington Post:ABOARD THE STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS, Jan. 7 For the moment, at least, the John McCain of yore has returned. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, John McCain is back. Left for dead when his campaign ran out of cash last summer, he returned to his endless town hall meetings and freewheeling talks on his campaign bus . . . Revived along with McCain's spirits: A level of "straight talk" bordering on the masochistic. . . . Mac is Back . . . . Perhaps as important, McCain has learned a small degree of restraint.
Euroshares close flat to higher; tech outperforms on SAP, IBM reports ...
(Updating with full report) LONDON, Jan. 14, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Europe's leading exchanges closed out the session flat to higher amid ongoing credit concerns and fears of a US recession, but the technology sector outperformed after strong quarterly sales from SAP and a solid earnings report from US computer giant IBM. (NYSE:IBM) The Dow Jones STOXX (OOTC:DJSFF) 50 Index dipped 0.17 point to 3,539.03 while the DJ STOXX 600 Index ticked up 1.09 points, or 0.3 pct, to 344.78. At the close of European trading, US stocks were trading higher after IBM said preliminary fourth-quarter earnings rose 24 pct year-on-year to beat Wall Street expectations by a wide margin, with the weaker dollar helping to push revenue up 10 pct. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, of which IBM is a component, was up more than 100 points.
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