Toyota to raise production next year

Toyota Motor, Japan's top automaker, has planned of making 10 million vehicles next year. Its plan will possibly out pace America's top automaker, the General Motors.



Japan's top automaker plans to raise its output projection for 2008 to 9.95 million vehicles worldwide from 9.90 million projected for the current year, the Nikkei business newspaper said. It did not say where it got the information.

The production increase reflects booming sales in China, the Middle East and other emerging economies, the Nikkei said.

Toyota officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the report.

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Countrywide under investigation

Countrywide Financial Corporation, the US top mortgage lender was allegedly receiving subpoenas from California and Illinois but decline to elaborate company policy as it was being asked so to resolute mortgage problems in the US. Because of this, the attorneys of California and Illinois will conduct an investigation to find out if this mortgage lender had something to do with the probes.

Countrywide was the chief provider of these loans -- known as pay-option mortgages -- which allow a borrower to pay less than the full interest that comes due each month, sending the loan balance up.

A former employee of One Source told investigators that the only Countrywide loan the broker tried to sell was the pay-option type because the rebates were so huge, Veronica Spicer, an assistant Illinois attorney general in the consumer protection division, said in comments reported by the newspaper.

Spicer said her office sent a subpoena for documents to Countrywide in mid-September.

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US Senate passes bill to expand mortgage plan

20,000 homeowners will be benefited of the recently passed bill made by the US senate to rescue these homeowners for possible house foreclosure due to subprime borrowing and interest rates. The said bill, which is a mortgage program designed to help struggling homeowners, is still scheduled for final reading and approval in each chamber before the President sign it into a law.

The bill, which passed on a 93-1 vote, would loosen underwriting standards and raise the size of loans that may be insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The FHA has said the changes should enable it to help 200,000 troubled borrowers save their homes.

The House of Representatives had already passed its own version of FHA reform. Now, a compromise between the two bills needs to be hammered out before a final vote in each chamber puts it before U.S. President George W. Bush to sign into law.

Separately, the Senate approved a bill to give tax relief to consumers who restructure their home loans to avoid foreclosure or who have lost their homes to foreclosure.

When a lender forgives or cancels a mortgage, under current law the financial relief is treated as income and the homeowner has to pay taxes on it.

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Lufthansa airline will buy shares from Jetblu

A total of 19 percent of Jetblu, a low-cost carrier airways,will be bought by a German airways, Lufthansa. The plan will be finalized after approval from the US regulators.

U.S. law caps foreign ownership of U.S. airlines at 25 percent, but an agreement between the United States and the European Union known as "open skies", which takes effect next year, could pave the way for full foreign ownership in the future.

The global airline industry has been recovering from a years-long downturn, and some experts believe carriers should consolidate to remove excess capacity and derive cost savings.

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Credit Rescue plan not enough to solve global crisis, expert says

Even US investors are still doubtful if the global economic crisis can be saved by the proposed credit rescue plans. What would be the best solution to this global problem?


"Is it going to be the silver bullet that solves the problem? Not even close," said Eric Green, economist at Benson Futures Ltd, Sydney. "It fails to address a lack of confidence and banks' willingness to lend."

Indeed it has. Interbank lending rates eased modestly Thursday in response to the central bank plan, but remain stubbornly elevated, indicating banks are still loathe to lend one another except at a prohibitive premium.

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Harvard University Director says US plan to stop housing slump is too late

The depreciating housing market in the US may trigger totally losing of homes for more than 1.2 million people in America, because the plan to rescue them through freezing of interest rates was too late according to the Director of Harvard University,Nicolas Retsinas. was it really too late?


"At best, it may stop some of the hemorrhaging of the housing market but it doesn't necessarily turn things around," said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University's Joint Centre for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The fundamental problem with housing is oversupply."

Existing home prices might fall as much as 15 per cent by 2009 from their peak last year, even if interest rates were frozen on one fifth of 2006 subprime loans resetting next year, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

About 2.8 million mortgage loan defaults would occur next year and in 2009, Mr Zandi said in testimony last week before the US Senate judiciary committee.

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Home foreclosure set new record high as prices keep declining

The real estate industries in America are being affected by the tremendous fall of house prices, to the extent that some of which are now planning for a foreclosure. Find out why.


--Housing markets from Punta Gorda, Florida, to Stockton, California, will crash and suffer price drops of more than 30 percent before the housing crisis is over, a report from Moody's Economy.com said.

On a national level, the housing market recession will continue through early 2009, said the report, co-authored by Mark Zandi, chief economist, and Celia Chen, director of housing economics.

The report paints a worsening picture of the hard-hit housing sector, which is in the midst of its worst downturn since World War II.

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Citigroup board will choose new chief this week

After the soundly resignation of Charles Prince as citigroup's CEO,the board will meet this week to settle problems Chief Executive Officership. There are some wannabes for the position but the board has set guidelines for the said position. The problem is expected to be settled this week.


Sources inside Citi told CNBC that Pandit "is acting" as if he has the CEO job, though they may name someone else as chairman. Possible candidates include the current chairman, Robert Rubin, or Bob Willumstad, current chairman of AIG.

Investors will be demanding fast results from whoever is named CEO. He will have to decide on how to cut costs--managers have already been asked to come up with headcount reductions --and the future direction of the firm. That would include the question of whether Citi breaks up or remains a financial supermarket.

Pandit worked at the brokerage Morgan Stanley for about 11 years until 2005, when he and some Morgan Stanley colleagues quit and later founded the hedge fund Old Lane Partners. Earlier this year, Citigroup bought Old Lane for $800 million and put Pandit in charge of Citi's alternative investments.

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Citigroup board will choose new chief this week.

Murdoch approves son to take over News Corp Asia ; Europe

James Murdoch, 34, will soon lead the operations of the Asia and Europe News Corporations, following his father's footsteps, Robert Murdoch, as the global media empire. The young Murdoch was personally tapped by his father to take over all the operations of all media entities owned by their family. With regards to this, a corporate restructure to all media entities will also happen the soonest.

James Murdoch's return to News Corp addresses long-held investor concern over who will take over the media and communications empire from the 76-year-old mogul.

"This is grooming James for a larger role longer term at News Corp," Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield said. "He has proved himself beyond a doubt over the last several years at BSkyB."

Murdoch's older son, Lachlan, 35, once a top executive at News Corp. and viewed as the heir apparent, left the company in 2005 to start a new venture, Illyria.

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Bush gov't offered 5 year mortgage freeze rate to homeowners

The Bush government had taken action to help the mortgage crisis in the US by offering 5 year plan of freezing mortgage rates of the US homeowners. Will this plan help the mortgage crisis in the US? Find out.

Bush released his plan on a day the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that the number of mortgages entering the foreclosure process in the July-September period set a record. Behind those foreclosures is a steep slump in the housing market. After a five-year boom, home sales are plunging and prices declining in many parts of the country. More foreclosures mean more homes dumped on a glutted market.

The housing slump has caused multibillion-dollar losses at some of the largest banks and investment firms and roiled financial markets. All these problems are expected to drag down economic growth to near recession levels over the final three months of this year and into early 2008.

“It is seems to be a crisis, as the result of a perfect storm” said Managing Partner of eOnline Financial, Mark Garner. “Macroeconomic environment with a prolonged period of low interest rates, high liquidity and low volatility, which led financial institutions to underestimate risks, a breakdown of credit and risk management practices in many financial institutions, and shortcomings in financial regulation and supervision.”

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US homeowners expect some relief thru mortgage plan

The dying mortgage industry in the US are now being backed up by a mortgage plan, carefully outlined to save US homeowners from subprime mortgages which are expected to increase in the next few months. Bush government are planning to freeze the interest rates so to rescue the homeowners from excessive interest rates.

Bush said 1.2 million people could be eligible for help. But only a fraction will be subject to the rate freeze. Others would get assistance in refinancing with their lenders and moving into loans secured by the Federal Housing Administration, Bush said.

Also, the aid will only come to those who ask for it, he said. Thousands of borrowers who are falling behind on their payments have been sent letters about the options, and Bush also urged people to call a new hot line: 1-888-995-HOPE.

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Will peoplesupport accept takeover offer?

There are issues that one of the leading outsourcing providers, peoplesupport, has takeover offer from from IPVG corp. will the company,which primarily operates in the Philippines, grab the offer?

PeopleSupport had about 23.8 million shares outstanding at the end of the third quarter, valuing the deal about $356.3 million.

The company, which operates call centers primarily in the Philippines, said its board plans to evaluate the unsolicited proposal and that its board recommends shareholders defer making any decision on the matter.

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Mortgage industry execs met to rescue homeowners from subprime mortgages

Should the plan will work out, homeowners would definitely be burdened free from the continuous interest rates that affect them most financially. However, the plan of freezing the interest rates on mortgages, is still unclear. It still has to be talked over and be finalized for approval, and even for legal actions.



Details over which mortgages would be considered for an automatic interest rate freeze of five to seven years are still sketchy. The source said that initially, only subprime loans with two- or three-year periods of low "teaser" rates would be considered, but more traditional subprime loans with longer fixed-rate periods could also be modified.

A shorter freeze period was initially considered, but Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair pressed in the negotiations for a five- to seven-year freeze. Bair was the first federal regulator to propose a broad rate freeze as California negotiated a similar deal with several top mortgage lenders in the state, hard-hit by the housing downturn.

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November recorded huge losses of stocks-will this mean blue christmas to stockholders?

November had passed. Spectators thought that the end of November would give the stocks an impressive record. But, everybody was wrong. All went out to worst! November had recorded a huge losses in stocks. Would this mean blue Christmas to stockholders?


For the record, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 fell 4% and 4.4%, respectively, their worst month in five years. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 6.9%, its worst month in over three years.

What happened? Not much, except that the housing market continued to implode, a credit crisis triggered billions of dollars of losses at financial giants like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, oil soared to nearly $100 a barrel and more economists predicted a recession.

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