Apple’s iPad March 9, 2010 No Comments
When Apple released its new product– the iPad, the excitement could hardly be contained. However there is a whole new kind of excitement after the release of this product. There is already talk of two lawsuits being filed against Apple and this new product.
AIG Makes the Largest Insurance Sale March 8, 2010 No Comments
American International Group Inc. has made two big sales in the last week in order to pay their debt to the government.
The first big sale was the purchase of AIG’s Asian life insurance to Britain’s Prudential for $35.5 billion. This was the largest insurance exchange in history.
The foreign life insurance part of the company will be sold to MetLife Inc for close to $15.5 billion with $6.8 billion in cash and $8.7 billion in equity.
AIG owes $31.5 billion to the government in cash following a $182.3 billion bailout. These sales will allow AIG to pay the government back fully, but the government will still hold an 80 percent stake in AIG due to the $47 billion they hold in equity investments.
Chief Executive of MetLife, Robert Henrikson, commented on their purchase saying, “With this acquisition, MetLife is delivering on its strategy to accelerate international expansion as a powerful growth engine for the company.”
However, many people fear MetLife will face hard times because of this purchase. Clark Troy, senior analyst at the Aite Group, said, “If (Japan) falters or slips back into deflation, MetLife might face challenges growing revenue.”
Recent Drop in Unemployment Claims For 2010 March 4, 2010 No Comments
So, In the last week, ending February 27th, roughly 29,000 less jobless claims were filed. This left the unemployment rate at 469,000 initial unemployment claims, being the lowest since the beginning of January.
There is some worry that the number may have been lower because of the bad weather as of lately. But in argument against that, unemployment claims in California itself dropped by at least 12,000.
This is a great improvement from where we were. It looks like 2010 could be bright on America’s economics. Yet, economists say that although times are looking good now, they will be bad again in the future. Also, they are not sure how beneficial the stimulus package will be.