US States SELLING ASSETS! Cash-strapped states weigh selling roads, parks!

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize.
Valuables like these are in for a closer look as 44 states cope with deficits.
Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has hinted that his January budget proposal will include proposals to privatize some of what the state owns or does. The Republican is looking for cash to help close a $5.27 billion deficit without raising taxes.
GOP lawmakers are pushing to privatize the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the state lottery. Both steps require a higher authority — federal legislation in the case of the airport, a voter-approved constitutional amendment for the lottery. But one lawmaker estimated an airport deal could bring in at least $2.5 billion, and the lottery $500 million.

Selling Assets

As Goes California, So Goes the Nation?Economic Downturn Threatens California's Health Care System
California has often been in the vanguard of trends that come to affect the whole country. It is looking now at bankruptcy. But who will bail it out? California politicians, including Governor Schwartzenegger, have shown neglect in managing the money given to them in good faith by the taxpayers. They are now dilly-dallying in a show of "chicken" as the state goes ever nearer to complete meltdown.
California Meltdown

Economic COLLAPSE in the UKRAINE-Coming to NORTH AMERICA

Economic meltdown prompts protest in Ukraine
By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 13 mins ago

KIEV, Ukraine – The currency has lost half of its value, tens of thousands face layoffs, residents in the capital are bundling up in winter clothes as the heat sporadically goes out and Russia is threatening to cut off gas supplies.

It's going to be a tough winter in Ukraine.

"I could understand if this were a village, but for the capital of a European country not to have heating, water and gas — how can this be?" asked Tamara Osipova, one of about 1,000 angry protesters outside the Kiev mayor's office on Thursday.

This ex-Soviet republic has been one of hardest hit by the global financial crisis. Expert warn that the discontent visible Thursday could turn into mass opposition to a government paralyzed by political infighting.

"This is all going to boil over next year," political analyst Ivan Lozowy said. "Desperate people are capable of desperate actions."

After years of robust economic growth, Ukraine has sunk into a deep recession, pressured by a drastic fall in the exports of steel, the core of the economy. A lack of confidence in the banking system, coupled with constant political turmoil under President Viktor Yushchenko has spurred a sharp devaluation in the national currency.

The hryvna has lost a half its value since the global credit crunch hit in September, and closed at trading 9.8 to the dollar Thursday, down from 4.9 in September.

Valentyna Ivanova, a 68-year-old retired engineer, said she could not survive on 700 hryvna a month — half of which she will spend on utilities after fees were raised.


Yushchenko has forecast the economy will contract up to 10 percent by the first three months of 2009.

Many Ukrainians also borrowed dollars to buy apartments and cars. Yushchenko's economic adviser, Valentyn Zhukovsky, predicted that up to 60 percent of them may default. That will prompt some banks to confiscate property, while others may go bankrupt, experts say.
Valentyna Ivanova, a 68-year-old retired engineer, said she could not survive on 700 hryvna a month — half of which she will spend on utilities after fees were raised.

"When I come home I should eat something, shouldn't I? And how will I buy food?" she asked at the protest.

Full Article

United Auto Workers union president STATES LIQUIDATION for GM FORD AND CHRYSLER!

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic leaders in Congress decided Thursday to delay a vote to bail out automakers until December, according to officials, and will first demand the Big 3 companies show how the funds would transform their beleaguered industry.

An announcement was expected later in the day, these officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to pre-empt a form announcement.
The big auto companies—General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC—have been seeking government loans totaling $25 billion to stay in business until spring. Critics want to make sure the companies will use the money to transform their industry into one that is more competitive.
Until Democratic leaders reached their agreement, the bailout had appeared headed for defeat in Congress, with the fate of hundreds of thousands of workers and Detroit's once-venerable car companies in the balance.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled plans for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans oppose that plan. They prefer tapping a different source of funds that is earmakred to help the industry manufacture more environmentally friendly products. But using those funds drew opposition from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as well as environmentalists.

Efforts on a compromise unfolded earlier in the day, and a small group of legislators circulated a proposal to give the industry the funds it needs while guaranteeing that the separate account would not be depleted.
With all sides sensing doom for a Big Three automaker rescue, the finger-pointing proceeded.

White House press secretary Dana Perino on Thursday blamed Reid for not allowing the Republicans' separate auto-aid plan to come up for a vote.

"Unfortunately it looks like Sen. Reid just wants to pick up his ball and go home for the next two weeks—two months—for vacation," she said.

Pressed on what the White House would do if Congress can't agree on a plan to rescue the automakers this week, Perino said she thought lawmakers would return after the Thanksgiving holiday for an emergency legislative session if an auto company was in imminent danger of collapsing.
"I can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't come back, unless the answer is that they just don't care. And if that's the case, then the American people ought to know that."

Congressional Democrats countered that the Treasury Department already had the power to grant emergency funds to the automakers, but the Bush administration opposed the approach.
The leaders of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC painted a grim picture of their financial position during two days of congressional hearings, warning that the collapse of the auto industry could lead to the loss of 3 million jobs. Detroit's automakers, hurt by a sharp drop in sales and a nearly frozen credit market, burned through nearly $18 billion in cash reserves during the last quarter—about $7 billion at GM, almost $8 billion at Ford and $3 billion at Chrysler. Both GM and Chrysler said they could collapse in weeks.

"I don't believe we have the luxury of a lot of time," GM CEO Rick Wagoner told a House hearing.

Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Co., said the company had enough cash reserves to make it through 2009. But United Auto Workers union president Ron Gettelfinger said a bankruptcy could spawn others.

"If there's a Chapter 11 (for) one of the companies, it will drag at least one other with them, if not all of them. And I do not believe Chapter 11 is where it will end. It will go to liquidation," he said ominously.

Automakers ran into more resistance from House lawmakers, who chastised the executives for fighting tougher fuel-efficiency standards in the past and questioned their use of private jets while at the same time seeking government handouts.

"My fear is that you're going to take this money and continue the same stupid decisions you've made for 25 years," said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass.

The stakes are high. The Detroit automakers employ nearly a quarter-million workers, and more than 730,000 other workers produce materials and parts that go into cars. About 1 million more people work in dealerships nationwide. If just one of the automakers declared bankruptcy, some estimates put U.S. job losses next year as high as 2.5 million.

Major Depression coming-GM Stock cut to sell TARGET=0

GM Cut to `Sell' at Deutsche, With Target of Zero (Update1)
By Sarah Thompson and Sarah Jones

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. was downgraded to ``sell'' at Deutsche Bank AG, which set a share-price estimate of zero, and was cut to ``underweight'' at Barclays Capital.

GM fell 12 percent to $3.83 at 8:55 a.m. before regular New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The biggest U.S. automaker said Nov. 8 it may not have enough cash to keep operating this year and will be ``significantly short'' by the end of June unless the auto market improves or it adds capital.

``Even if GM succeeds in averting a bankruptcy, we believe that the company's future path is likely to be bankruptcy- like,'' Rod Lache, a Deutsche Bank analyst in New York, wrote in a research note, lowering his recommendation from ``hold.''

Barclays set a share-price target of $1 in dropping its rating on Detroit-based GM from ``equal weight.''

``While further government assistance would decrease the likelihood of a GM bankruptcy, we believe any government assistance would likely significantly dilute GM's equity,'' Brian Johnson, a Barclays analyst, wrote in a research note.

GM plunged 82 percent before today, the most of any of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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GM/FORD are just about CLOSED DOWN-ALERT!

FROM CNN: GM, world's largest carmaker, reports $4.2 billion loss and warns it is running out of money. Ford: Massive loss, job cuts
Detroit under siege: Ford auto unit burns through $6.3 billion and cuts 2,600 hourly workers.
US STAT:Jobs lost in 2008: 1.2 million
Payrolls shrink by 240,000 in October, 10th straight month of cuts. Unemployment soars to 6.5%

Comment: GM is not looking to merger anymore but rather ONLY to stay afloat. If these company go BANKRUPT we are going into a DEPRESSION the next day. The number of companies associated with GM/FORD are mind boggling! They will all go bankrupt and close. ARE YOU READY?

China going into a DEPRESSION TOO?

Financially troubled plants are being abandoned by the boss, leaving behind unpaid workers and debts.
By Don Lee
November 3, 2008

Reporting from Shaoxing, China -- First, Tao Shoulong burned his company's financial books. He then sold his private golf club memberships and disposed of his Mercedes S-600 sedan.

And then he was gone.

And just like that, China's biggest textile dye operation -- with four factories, a campus the size of 31 football fields, 4,000 workers and debts of at least $200 million -- was history.

"We're pretty much dead now," said Mao Youming, one of 300 suppliers stiffed last month by Tao's company, Jianglong Group. Lighting a cigarette in a coffee shop here, the 38-year-old spoke calmly about the bleak future of his industrial gas business. Tao owed him $850,000, Mao said, about 60% of his annual revenue. "We cannot pay our workers' salaries. We are about to be bankrupt too."

Government statistics show that 67,000 factories of various sizes were shuttered in China in the first half of the year, said Cao Jianhai, an industrial economics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. By year's end, he said, more than 100,000 plants will have closed.

As more factories in China shut down, stories of bosses running away have become familiar, multiplying the damage of China's worst manufacturing decline in at least a decade.

Even before the global financial crisis, factory owners in China were straining under soaring labor and raw-material costs, an appreciating Chinese currency and tougher legal, tax and environmental requirements. When the credit crunch took hold -- prompting Western businesses to slash orders for Chinese goods and bankers to curtail loans to factories -- many operations were pushed over the edge.

Bankrupt and Closing Retail Stores

Here is a list of Retail stores closing, is your favorite store here? This is quite scary folks!

Ann Taylor closing 117 stores nationwide.

Eddie Bauer to close more stores after closing 27 stores in the first quarter.

Cache, a women’s retailer is closing 20 to 23 stores this year.

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines closing 150 stores nationwide

Talbots, J. Jill closing stores. Talbots will close all 78 of its kids and men's stores plus another 22 underperforming stores. The 22 stores will be a mix of Talbots women's and J. Jill.

Gap Inc. closing 85 stores

Foot Locker to close 140 stores

Wickes Furniture is going out of business and closing all of its stores. The 37-year-old retailer that targets middle-income customers, filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Levitz - the furniture retailer, announced it was going out of business and closing all 76 of its stores in December. The retailer dates back to 1910.

Zales, Piercing Pagoda plans to close 82 stores by July 31 followed by closing another 23 underperforming stores.

Disney Store owner has the right to close 98 stores.

Home Depot store closings 15 of them amid a slumping US economy and housing market. The move will affect 1,300 employees. It is the first time the world's largest home improvement store chain has ever closed a flagship store.

CompUSA (CLOSED).

Macy's - 9 stores closed

Movie Gallery – video rental company plans to close 400 of 3,500 Movie Gallery

and Hollywood Video stores in addition to the 520 locations the video rental

chain closed last fall as part of bankruptcy.

Pacific Sunwear - 153 Demo stores closing

Pep Boys - 33 stores of auto parts supplier closing

Sprint Nextel - 125 retail locations to close with 4,000 employees following 5,000 layoffs last year.

J. C. Penney, Lowe's and Office Depot are all scaling back

Ethan Allen Interiors: plans to close 12 of 300 stores to cut costs.

Wilsons the Leather Experts – closing 158 stores

Bombay Company: to close all 384 U.S.-based Bombay Company stores.

KB Toys closing 356 stores around the United States as part of its bankruptcy reorganization.

Dillard's Inc. will close another six stores this year.
Chili’s restaurants closing across the PacNW region

Bennigan’s / Steak & Ale
Mervyn’s
Steve & Barry’s Fashion
Sprint Nextel closing 125 locations
Sharper Image shutting down 90 to 180 stores
Pep Boys, 33 stores; Ethan Allen, 12 stores and Dillards, six stores
Kirkland's Stores Closing: 30 to 130
Why? Management of the national home-decor chain told analysts it intends to close 30 underperforming stores during the fourth quarter, which ended in January. It is considering closing even more stores (up to 100) in the next 18 months, saying it wants to focus on stores not based in malls.
Rite Aid Stores Closing: 28
Why? The drugstore chain announced in January that it was exiting the Las Vegas, Nev. market because the stores there had not been contributing to overall results. The company hasn't opened a new store in the Las Vegas area since 1999
Pier 1 Imports Stores Closing: 25
Friedman's, which operated 455 jewelry stores, is also closing after filing Chapter 11

Top 10 JOBS for the COMING GREAT DEPRESSION

1. Bankruptcy Attorney/Trustee/Advisor-Financial crisis advice for the bankrupt investor/home owner and average worker (with credit left)
2. Pawn Shop Attendee-Grab valuable items and give them little cash for their efforts
3. Government Worker-Make useless cash bring it home and burn it to keep warm
4. Tent Salesman- Sell tents for the upcoming tent cities that will be springing up everywhere
5. Bodyguard-Start working out so you can get paid to protect your neighbors from vagabonds
7. Garbage Collector-Work for the city AND find junk to put in your pawn shop-get paid twice!
8.Common Thief-Steal food to feed your family, thank you government for creating this job
9.Security Guard-Probably the most secure job since everything will be stolen everywhere
10.President-Become the highest paid thief in the country, then run to your farm in Paraguay when it gets too hot to handle

Largest Chicken Manufacturer going BANKRUPT!

FOAF just said Pilgrims Pride had two days worth of feed remaining. There could be a market flooded with chicken and low prices, quickly followed by skyrocketing prices. Lots of jobs will be lost also as neither Tyson or Waynes Farms would be able to take up all the slack. Talking about a coming depression!

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- The sky could be falling on Pilgrim's Pride Corp., the chicken industry's biggest producer.

With its temporary financing ending on Tuesday and credit markets tight all around, the company faces an uncertain future. Some analysts say it could file for bankruptcy, though Pilgrim's Pride has said that option is unlikely. Others say the company is ripe for a buyout, either in whole or in part, by competitors. "Essentially, Pilgrim's Pride as we know it today will cease to exist."
Company spokesman Gary Rhodes said Pilgrim's Pride won't be making any comments. Earlier this month, he was widely quoted as saying that filing for bankruptcy wouldn't be in "anyone's best interest."

New York Wall Street 2009

What will New York look like a year from now? The answer: bad and probably worse, and perhaps downright catastrophic. Three degrees of awful. The first step was passing the bank-bailout legislation. Now that it’s done—and if it didn’t get done we would have been looking at a guaranteed economic collapse—the critical issue will be presidential leadership. And while any president will be an improvement over the current one, there is a growing belief on Wall Street that Barack Obama has the capacity to lead us out of this wilderness while John McCain does not. I’ll go a step further: Obama is a recession. McCain is a depression. Although in my opinion, I think neither one will stop a freight train of financial destruction. The Dow below 7200? Perhaps. Your 401k, 50% off, your home 50% lower? Many of those without a nest egg will find themselves in foreclosure, personal bankruptcy, or other dire financial straits. Here is some morbid advice: Purchase a life insurance policy on a relative 65 years or younger. Make yourself the beneficiary. Make the payments. Cash out tax free when the inevitable happens. WAY Better than your 401k will ever be!

Funeral home BANKRUPT! Bodies EVICTED!

When this happens you KNOW we are into a depression, even the dead are evicted? WOW!

PONTIAC, Mich. — Even the dead can't escape foreclosure in suburban Detroit.

Five bodies and the cremated remains of 22 people have been evicted from the House of Burns Memorial Chapel, a funeral home in Pontiac.

After removal, they were delivered to the Oakland County medical examiner's office for storage early Friday. The medical examiner's administrator, Robert Gerds, said some of the cremated remains date to the 1990s.

Shipping Lines Face Collapse in 6 months

Commodity carriers will collapse in 6 months according to Fearnley Fonds ASA.
We will see a significant number of bankruptcies, that's for sure", given rental rates forecast by freight derivatives.
Industrial Carriers Inc, a Ukrainian operator of about 55 vessels, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.
Shipping rates have also been hurt by frozen credit markets.
And a reduction in banks' willingness to provide the letters of credit that traders use to fund purchases of cargoes.
Rental rates have slumped to less than US$10,000 a day (the market's peak may now be losing about US$140,000 a day)
To make matters WORSE:
In his testimony before Congress yesterday, former Fed Chairman Greenspan confessed that this financial crisis may be the worst in 100 years. If that's the case, then it's not beyond the realm of reason to anticipate a stock market decline that's also among the worst in 100 years.

Get ready for a tidal wave of BANKRUPT COMPANIES

In a report released Tuesday, ratings agency Standard & Poor's says there are 140 large U.S. companies in danger of not being able to pay their bills in the next few months, up nearly twofold from the beginning of this year. Among the troubled firms on the agency's list are such household names as clothing retailer Eddie Bauer, amusement park operator Six Flags and pizza chain Sbarro. Also on the list are doughnut baker Krispy Kreme and mobile technology titan Palm, as well as a number of the nation's largest airlines, including JetBlue and the corporate parents of United and American.Wickes Furniture and Sharper Image have already gone away. Whitehall Jewelers, Linens 'n Things and Shoe Pavillion are liquidating. And California discount department store Mervyns decided last week that it would go out of business after failing to find a buyer.