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U.K. consumer confidence increased to the highest level since May after the Bank of England cut interest rates to a record low, GfK NOP said.
The market researcher’s index of consumer confidence rose five points to minus 30 in March, the company said in a statement in London. The survey of 2,003 people was […]

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Long-time pillars of the community are now pariahs living in fear, hiding behind locked gates and security guards amid the public outrage over bonuses paid with taxpayer bailout money.
Payouts by American International Group Inc. appear to have put a face on the economic struggles the country faces, and the anger […]

Kevin Chou has had his fair share of visa woes. For the past two years running, his Silicon Valley social networking start-up, Watercooler, has applied for an H-1B work visa for the same Canadian employee. Both times, the petition lost out in the government’s annual visa lottery, which selected only 85,000 from a pool […]

The U.S. government Thursday sued UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, to force the firm to give the Internal Revenue Service secret account information on thousands of accounts believed to be worth nearly $15 billion.
The suit comes only one day after the Justice Department announced an agreement in which UBS promised to provide secret account information.
However, […]

Toyota Motor Corp forecast a first-ever annual operating loss, blaming a relentless sales slide and a crippling rise in the yen in what it said was an emergency unprecedented in its 70-year history.
Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, had been expected to issue its second profit warning in less than seven weeks after domestic rival […]

Manufacturers are ending a bruising year with a new round of bad news and grim outlooks for 2009.
Industrial production fell 0.6 percent in November as the country’s output of cars, automotive goods, home electronics, appliances and furniture tumbled in the face of declining orders, the Federal Reserve reported Monday. Consumers and commercial buyers […]

Bank of America said Thursday it plans to slash up to 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it absorbs Merrill Lynch and contends with the deepening recession.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, which will be the nation’s largest financial services firm when the Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) deal closes in coming weeks, said […]

The French tradedeficit widened to a record in September as a global economic slowdown curbed exports.
The trade gap expanded to 6.25 billion euros ($8 billion) from a revised 5.37 billion euros in August, the Trade Ministry said in Paris today. Economists forecast a trade deficit of 5 billion euros in September, according to […]

Spending by U.S. consumers probably dropped in September, capping its weakest quarter in three decades and signaling the economy will continue to slump in coming months, economists said before a report today.
Purchases fell 0.2 percent after no change in August, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 73 economists. […]

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson consulted with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke as stocks slid worldwide and met with his team to set up the $700 billion program to shore up the financial system.
Paulson also spoke with New York Fed President Timothy Geithner and reached out to Wall Street executives, Treasury spokeswoman Brookly […]