Total positions lost at bailed-out British banks RBS and Lloyds rises to almost 45,000. Richard Wray | The Guardian | 2 September 2010: The total number of British jobs axed by RBS and Lloyds TSB, both of which were bailed out by the taxpayer and are still part owned by the government, reached almost 45,000 today. RBS announced that it was axing 3,500 back-office jobs as a result of the sale of... 

Paul Joseph Watson | Prison Planet.com | 1 September 2010: Investors were briefly panicked yesterday when the Yahoo Finance website indicated that gold had soared to over $3400 dollars an ounce, an instant jump of 175 per cent. Possible reasons for the shocking spike ranged from a simple mistake to a secret signal being communicated to insiders as to where the commodity was really heading. Just... 

Regulators Shut Down Banks In Florida, Georgia, Oregon & Washington; Makes 108 US Bank Failures This Year. AP | CBS News | 31 July 2010: WASHINGTON (AP) - Regulators on Friday shut banks in Florida, Georgia, Oregon and Washington, lifting to 108 the number of U.S. banks to fail this year as the industry has struggled to cope with mounting loan defaults and recession. The Federal Deposit Insurance... 

Russia Today | 28 July 2010: People in Riverside, California have stopped using electricity and other utilities because they can't afford the skyrocketing prices. Banks are taking the homes off of the market and then not putting them into their inventory, making it tougher on the people trying to afford their mortgages. According to our guest George Hemminger, 25% of the people in Riverside are... 

National Audit Office says 'systemic' problems mean defence ministry is unable to account for £6bn of equipment. Press Association | The Guardian | 27 July 2010: The National Audit Office today refused to sign off the Ministry of Defence's annual accounts, for the fourth year in a row. The spending watchdog said the MoD was unable to account properly for more than £6bn of equipment. The head... 

NHS bosses have drawn up secret plans for sweeping cuts to services, with restrictions on the most basic treatments for the sick and injured. Laura Donnelly | The Telegraph | 26 July 2010: Some of the most common operations — including hip replacements and cataract surgery — will be rationed as part of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government promises that front-line services... 

Press TV | 26 July 2010: The UK Film Council will be axed as part of the British government's plans to cut costs, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said. Hunt announced plans to close the Council which has an annual budget of £15 million and employs 75 people. Hunt also said that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council would be dismantled, while UK Sport and Sport England will merge. The... 

After a breakdown in weekend talks over its deficit-cutting plans, Hungary says it will work with the EU but not the IMF going forward. Leigh Phillips | Bloomberg Businessweek | 22 July 2010: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is sticking to his government's position that the country will not impose further austerity measures and has said that there is "no point" in continuing talks with the... 

Hopes for a rapid improvement in the nation’s finances suffered a setback after public sector borrowing last month was higher than forecasts. Philip Aldrick | The Telegraph | 20 July 2010: Public sector net borrowing hit £14.5bn in June, above the £13bn consensus among economists. If the trend continues, the Government will miss its deficit reduction target, raising fresh questions about the... 

Thousand of British holidaymakers are stranded abroad after the tour operator Goldtrail went into administration. Patrick Sawer - The Telegraph - 17 July 2010: The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that Goldtrail, which specialises in holidays to Greece and Turkey specialist, collapsed at around 4pm on Friday. Around 16,000 tourists were abroad when the operator went into administration, with... 

Rarely before have a few coded words in the minutes of the US Federal Reserve caused such an upheaval in the global currency system, or such a sudden flight from the dollar. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - The Telegraph - 15 July 2010: The euro rocketed to a two-month high of $1.29 and sterling jumped two cents to almost $1.54 after the Fed confessed that the US economy may not recover for five or six... 

Tess Stynes - Dow Jones Newswires - 15 July 2010: NBTY Inc. (NTY) agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm Carlyle Group in a deal valued at $3.5 billion in one of the largest transactions to take a public company private since the credit bubble burst. Carlyle and Blackstone Group LP (BX), two of the world’s largest buyout firms, had been eyeing the vitamin and nutritional-supplement maker,... 

The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk - 4 July 2010: "The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession," said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. "All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing." "Home... 

BBC News Web Site - 8 July 2010: Euro MPs have approved a new deal to allow US anti-terror investigators to access Europeans' bank data. The vote followed tough negotiations with US authorities after a previous agreement was blocked by the European Parliament in February. EU negotiators say the new deal gives EU officials authority to monitor the US investigators' actions. The deal gives the US... 

BBC News web site - 25 June 2010: Italians are taking part in a general strike organised by the country's largest trade union to protest against government austerity measures. The union, CGIL, called the strike after Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition approved the measures. They include cuts in funding for local government and the freezing of public sector pay. Rallies were held in major... 

Part-time work at record high of 7.8m Economically inactive rise 29,000 to hit 8.19m Now 21.5% of working-age are not in a job Youth unemployment up 11,000 to 926,000 Becky Barrow - Mail Online - June 16, 2010: Record numbers of Britons are being forced to work part-time in a desperate move which cripples their finances, official figures revealed today. Experts... 

Robert Wenzel - Economic Policy Journal - June 16, 2010: Spanish banks are borrowing record amounts from the European Central Bank. According to FT, Spanish banks borrowed €85.6bn ($105.7bn) from the ECB last month. This was double the amount lent to them before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and 16.5 per cent of net eurozone loans offered by the central bank. “If the suspicion... 

Accountancy regulator investigates allegations that Ernst & Young approved hiding of Lehman debt Elena Moya - The Guardian - Wednesday 16 June 2010: Britain's accountancy regulator will today launch an investigation into Ernst & Young's role as auditor of the European arm of Lehman Brothers. The investigation follows an allegation in March by a US court-appointed examiner that E&Y –... 

House buyers could be refused mortgages under new Bank of England powers to be unveiled by George Osborne. By Edmund Conway and Louise Armitstead - Telegraph - 15 June 2010: The Chancellor will announce that he will hand a host of new controls to the Bank to prevent another financial crisis. The powers will mean that, for the first time in the modern era, the Bank could impose restrictions on the... 

The annual cost to the taxpayer of funding public sector pensions will more than double in the next five years to £4,000 per household, the Office for Budget Responsibility has disclosed. By Andrew Porter, Political Editor - The Telegraph - 14 June 2010 By 2015, almost £10 billion of public money will be spent every year supporting the retirement of millions of public sector employees – up from...