| Business news in brief
Total Health Home Care Corp. agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a class-action wage-and-hour case brought against it in May 2006 by its employees, home health workers who care for the elderly and disabled. Represented by the Service Employees International Union, employees sued the Upper Darby company in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia, saying Total Health violated state and federal wage laws by not paying 3,000 workers employed between May 2002 and March 2007 for the time they spent traveling between clients. In the settlement, the company did not admit wrongdoing. It agreed to pay overtime and travel time for the next two years and to allow its policies to be monitored by a plaintiffs' lawyer. Local attorneys for the workers are Joshua Rubinsky of Brodie & Rubinsky and Bruce M. Ludwig of Willig, Willig & Davidson.
Yields up on tight liquidity; may remain ranged till year-end
Bangalore, Nov. 18 Bond yields firmed on the back of tight liquidity and oil companies' move to take advantage of the retreat in oil prices. Traders said the spectre of more sub-prime casualties was slowly emerging, the latest one being Wachovia, the world's fourth largest bank. Wachovia has reported a sub-prime loan write downs of about $1.1 billion. But bankers are expecting more loan losses worldwide. In fact, the Federal Reserve has been accepting mortgage-backed securities for bailing out troubled banks. On November 16, the New York Federal Reserve carried repurchase operations of over $28 billion. Of these, at least $3.7 billion was in the form of repurchase of mortgage-backed securities. But the Fed's infusion has conveyed the impression that liquidity support would continue for some more time and interest rates would be allowed to soften, despite financial market troubles.
Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at the Eighth Annual U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2007 ...
Washington, D.C. Secretary Chertoff: It's a lunch speech, but I don't see lunch. I guess you all ate before I got here. I want to thank Commissioner Basham for the introduction. But beyond that, I want to thank him for his service not only in this challenging and very important job with a huge domain of responsibility, but also his prior service with the Secret Service and with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Ralph Basham has spent a career protecting this country, and we're very fortunate to have him as the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. I also want to thank him for having these yearly symposiums that are designed to strengthen the security partnership between the government and the private sector. And it's nowhere where that's more important than in the area of trade, because obviously that is a private sector function, but it's one in which there's an intersection with the United States government.
Silence at the Abbey as customer service dives
Just what is going on at Abbey? Why are so many people complaining about its service? A lot of customers - including many Cash readers - would like to know. And so would I. In the past six months, I have received nearly twice as many letters about Abbey as any other banking group. But no senior person at Abbey would answer my questions last week because, the bank says, the chief executive is having dinner with personal finance editors in a fortnight's time. It might answer my questions after that, but not before. This is just the sort of inexcusable delay that Abbey customers have come to expect. Customer Jackie Brown spent three months trying to persuade Abbey to update her address, while Peter Corley waited nine weeks for his pounds 14,500 cash Isa to be transferred to Abbey, which twice lost the transfer form and then the original application form as well.
Stocks End Volatile Day With Comeback
NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street ended a volatile week with a late-day comeback Friday after investors set aside some concerns about the banking sector and the health of the overall economy. Stocks began Friday's trading having fallen in six of the prior seven sessions as investors fretted about whether consumers would succumb to higher energy prices, rising mortgage costs and an anemic dollar. Continuing credit turmoil has also stirred concerns about the soundness of corporate balance sheets and profits. A sharp rally Tuesday was largely undone by subsequent pullbacks; on Friday, the market appeared headed to another down day before the major indexes, which had flip-flopped all day, turned higher in the last half-hour. Financial stocks fell, partly due to a Fortune story that raised the possibility Fannie Mae could be masking the true magnitude of credit-related hits to its profits.
Subprime troubles have yet to affect small business loans
Bad bets on subprime mortgages may be wreaking havoc on Wall Street, but there is little evidence that small businesses are having a hard time getting loans as a result. Lending data "and our conversations with bankers suggest that, at least to date, the supply of credit to small businesses remains healthy," said Frederic Mishkin, a Federal Reserve Board governor. Credit standards have tightened for all types of business loans, Mishkin told the House Small Business Committee Nov. 7. But small businesses aren't feeling the pinch as much as large businesses because few small business loans are securitized, he said. Also, small banks that specialize in "relationship lending" to small businesses have been "relatively unaffected by disruptions to the securitization markets," Mishkin said.
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