Where Are the Little People in the 2008 US Transition?
A Chicago manufacturer recently gave its 250 employees three days notice that it was closing the plant on Friday, December 5 in the 2008 US transition year.
In a statement released through Market Watch on December 8, the company stated that its earnings had dropped from over $52 million in 2007 to just over $40 million in 2008.
In the statement, the company also disclosed that it had begun negotiations with its lender in mid-October for an orderly closure by January after the Bank refused to extend its credit line on the basis that it was over-collateralized.
The Bank rejected that plan and also called for a shorter wind-down of operations.
A new plan submitted in late October was also rejected in late November, along with a request for permission to pay vacation salaries to employees earning approximately $14 per hour.
According to ChiTown Daily News on December 8, the manufacturers had purchased anther plant making the same product just two weeks before the planned December 5 closure of the Chicago plant.
The new plant had been formerly operated by a Pennsylvania plant and the manufacturers had purchased a $2.
6 million condo in the new location in 2007.
The workers occupying the plant throughout the week-end gained mounting public support, first locally, then nationally and then worldwide.
Their situation became the symbol of the picture throughout America, where institutions were being bailed out with $700 billions of taxpayer money while over a half million taxpayers lost jobs in the month of November alone, bringing the total of those falling into unemployment within the last three months to over a million.
The Bank in question had become Chicago's second biggest bank after buying out another Bank in October 2007, which had been the Chicago area's second biggest deposit gatherer behind Chase, according to Chicagotribune.
com in late November.
Deposits had declined by over 7 per cent as of June 2008, in the latest figures available from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
No doubt deposits had declined further in the continually souring economy where the bailout was making no impact.
The Bank concerned received $15 billion of the bailout money, the equivalent of what automakers would receive if they were lucky, as of early December.
On December 5, shareholders approved of the Bank's purchase of an investment firm that had received a $10 billion infusion from the bailout.
According to the Bank's chairman, the transaction would make the Bank the "premier financial services franchise" for everything from financial services to credit cards.
The transaction would also increase the Bank's "global footprint.
" On Monday, December 8, the Illinois Governor called for a halt to state business with the Bank until it restored the line of credit enabling the manufacturer to pay vacation and severance amounts owed to the 250 workers.
On Tuesday at 5:15 a.
m.
, the Governor and his Chief of Staff were arrested on "unrelated charges.
" Meanwhile, Reuters announced in early December that the credit-card industry was expected to cut $2 trillion in consumer credit over the next 18 months.
Consumer liquidity was expected to drop by 45 percent as the three biggest banks insulated themselves against a tsunami of expected consumer defaults by closing accounts, cutting credit lines and raising interest rates.
Further, those measures would be taken without prior notice to consumers, as stipulated in the fine print on credit card contracts with protections extended in only one direction.
Appropriately enough, the urgent need to stimulate consumer confidence had been dropped from the headlines by December after 2008 Black Friday just the week before.
But the board of directors and the compensation committee of the investment firm being acquired by the Bank were due to meet on Monday, December 15, prior to the acquisition expected by year's end.
The agenda for that meeting was to decide on the amount of bonuses the chief executives were to receive, including a $10 million figure that the investment firm head had proposed as appropriate for himself.
In a statement released through Market Watch on December 8, the company stated that its earnings had dropped from over $52 million in 2007 to just over $40 million in 2008.
In the statement, the company also disclosed that it had begun negotiations with its lender in mid-October for an orderly closure by January after the Bank refused to extend its credit line on the basis that it was over-collateralized.
The Bank rejected that plan and also called for a shorter wind-down of operations.
A new plan submitted in late October was also rejected in late November, along with a request for permission to pay vacation salaries to employees earning approximately $14 per hour.
According to ChiTown Daily News on December 8, the manufacturers had purchased anther plant making the same product just two weeks before the planned December 5 closure of the Chicago plant.
The new plant had been formerly operated by a Pennsylvania plant and the manufacturers had purchased a $2.
6 million condo in the new location in 2007.
The workers occupying the plant throughout the week-end gained mounting public support, first locally, then nationally and then worldwide.
Their situation became the symbol of the picture throughout America, where institutions were being bailed out with $700 billions of taxpayer money while over a half million taxpayers lost jobs in the month of November alone, bringing the total of those falling into unemployment within the last three months to over a million.
The Bank in question had become Chicago's second biggest bank after buying out another Bank in October 2007, which had been the Chicago area's second biggest deposit gatherer behind Chase, according to Chicagotribune.
com in late November.
Deposits had declined by over 7 per cent as of June 2008, in the latest figures available from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
No doubt deposits had declined further in the continually souring economy where the bailout was making no impact.
The Bank concerned received $15 billion of the bailout money, the equivalent of what automakers would receive if they were lucky, as of early December.
On December 5, shareholders approved of the Bank's purchase of an investment firm that had received a $10 billion infusion from the bailout.
According to the Bank's chairman, the transaction would make the Bank the "premier financial services franchise" for everything from financial services to credit cards.
The transaction would also increase the Bank's "global footprint.
" On Monday, December 8, the Illinois Governor called for a halt to state business with the Bank until it restored the line of credit enabling the manufacturer to pay vacation and severance amounts owed to the 250 workers.
On Tuesday at 5:15 a.
m.
, the Governor and his Chief of Staff were arrested on "unrelated charges.
" Meanwhile, Reuters announced in early December that the credit-card industry was expected to cut $2 trillion in consumer credit over the next 18 months.
Consumer liquidity was expected to drop by 45 percent as the three biggest banks insulated themselves against a tsunami of expected consumer defaults by closing accounts, cutting credit lines and raising interest rates.
Further, those measures would be taken without prior notice to consumers, as stipulated in the fine print on credit card contracts with protections extended in only one direction.
Appropriately enough, the urgent need to stimulate consumer confidence had been dropped from the headlines by December after 2008 Black Friday just the week before.
But the board of directors and the compensation committee of the investment firm being acquired by the Bank were due to meet on Monday, December 15, prior to the acquisition expected by year's end.
The agenda for that meeting was to decide on the amount of bonuses the chief executives were to receive, including a $10 million figure that the investment firm head had proposed as appropriate for himself.
