In hte News October 8, 2008

Money Problems Continue

• The Federal Reserve, along with other central worldwide, enacted an emergency interest rate cut of half of a percentage point to 1.5%. They hope that by lowering the rate will pump money into the economy by reducing the borrowing cost on a broad range of loans, including credit cards, home equity lines and many business loans.
  

"The recent intensification of the financial crisis has augmented the downside risks to growth and thus has diminished further the upside risks to price stability," the Fed said in a statement.

This was the Fed's eighth rate cut since September 2007 and the second outside of a regularly-scheduled meeting.

• The US government's budget deficit has ballooned in fiscal 2008 to 438 billion dollars (322 billion euros), or 3.1 percent of GDP, as the economic downturn began to bite, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

• The Nikkei average plunged 9.4 percent overnight. This was its biggest drop since the 1987 stock market crash, as growing fears of a global recession led investors to wipe $250 billion off the value of Tokyo shares.

• Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value.

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Is Iceland Going Under?

Iceland could become the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financial meltdown.
Iceland is the home to j320,000 people on a territory the size of Kentucky.

At one time, Iceland had one of the world's highest per capita incomes. But now their currency has lost almost half its value, and their heavily exposed banks collapsing under the weight of debts incurred by lending in the boom times.
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Half Ton Man Dies

The 47-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in northern Mexico.

At 990-pounds (450-kilogram), the bedridden man who had appealed on Mexican television for help tackling his weight problem. He died of heart failure.

He said he had always struggled with his weight but fell into a cycle of depression and overeating nine months ago after his parents died of natural causes within two weeks of each other. Because of his condition, he had been bedridden for four months. His condition deteriorated over the weekend as he struggled to breathe and eat.