The Treasury Department is increasing its aid to the automobile industry by throwing an extra $6 billion to the already-promised $17.4 billion. The additional funding is, per Politico, "chiefly to help the financial arm of General Motors Corp.": "Treasury will purchase $5 billion in senior preferred equity from GMAC LLC, and up to $1 billion more will be lent to GM itself so the automaker can participate in a rights offering at GMAC, which has wanted to reorganize itself as a bank holding company." The NY Times, which calls GMAC a "crucial source of automobile sales financing," adds that the company's transformation into a bank holding company allows it "borrow money at low rates" from the Fed. The hope is that GM's auto sales can be spurred, but one investment manager told Bloomberg News, "Philosophically, I'm not very happy about the fact that the government has to save an auto-finance company because management ran it into the ground." more ›

President Bush just announced loans to the GM and Chrysler totaling $17.4 billion: $13.4 billion now and $4 billion in February, if they, according to Times, "undertak[e] sweeping reorganizations to show that they can return to profitability." The money will come from the TARP bailout. more ›

With the Senate's failure to pass the $14 billion auto industry bailout bill, world stock markets fell: Asian markets fell over 5% and European markets are down more than 3%. Futures suggest that Wall Street will open lower as well, also due to news from JPMorgan Chase (it had a "terrible" November and December) and Bank of America (cutting 35,000 jobs over three years). more ›

News that AT&T will cut 12,000 jobs--or 4% of its workforce--due to "economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure," and DuPont will cut 2,500 employees is sending stock futures down, along with lower earnings forecasts from Merck, Nokia, and Credit Suisse. GM, Ford and Chrysler are headed back to D.C. to ask for a $34 billion bailout. And the Labor Department revealed that jobless claims fell "unexpectedly" by 21,000 (as in the actual jobless claims were 21,000 less than expected) last week, but that still means there were 509,000 jobless claims: "The four-week moving average of new jobless claims, a better gauge of underlying labor trends because it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose to 524,500 from 518,250 the week before, the highest since the week of Dec. 18, 1982, when a reading of 554,500 was recorded." more ›