“The dollar today is what the penny was to the grandparent’s generation,” said Marshal Cohen, an analyst for the research firm NPD Group. “When you can get something for a dollar and it works, people get excited.”

When a hurricane threatens, making a plan and gearing up for emergencies is imperative. Economic emergencies happen too, but it may be less obvious how to prepare. Here are seven steps you should take to weather any financial storm.

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A battle broke out for control of Wachovia Friday as Wells Fargo signed a $15.1 billion agreement to buy the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, while Citigroup and the federal regulators backing its earlier deal insisted that Citi’s takeover bid go forward.

U.S. employers slashed payrolls by 159,000 in September, the most in more than five years, a worrisome sign that the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession.

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Assigning blame for recent events in the financial markets is today’s most pressing political issue. Unintended cause and effect are both complex and subtle, but recognizing the culprits is important if we want to avoid giving them additional power and responsibility.

Veteran banker Glenn Rust sat down with The Daily Progress to discuss the Charlottesville region’s economy, the nation’s financial crisis and his plans for Virginia National Bank’s future growth.

Updated 3:30 p.m.

“I now expect that we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate (and) be signed by the president,“ said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.
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President Bush is bringing presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain into negotiations on a $700 billion rescue of Wall Street as Democrats and Republicans near agreement on a bailout plan with more protections for taxpayers and new help for distressed homeowners.

“The financial markets are in quite fragile condition and I think absent a plan they will get worse,“ Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said.

Top executive Philip J. Schoonover resigned yesterday, four months after he asked shareholders for more time to turn around Circuit City Stores Inc.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged Congress on Tuesday to quickly pass a $700 billion financial bailout, warning that letting problems persist would have dire consequences for the national economy.

For decades, Kodachrome was the standard choice for professional color photography and avant-garde filmmaking. At its peak, a reverential Paul Simon crooned “Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away” in 1973. It’s the only film to have a state park named after it — photogenic Kodachrome Basin State Park in the red-rock canyons of southern Utah.

BRIC nations have surpassed expectations. The original Goldman Sachs analysis projected the four economies would comprise over 10 percent of the global output by the end of the decade. A year and a half early, they comprise nearly 13 percent.

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The Bush administration sketched out a multi-faceted effort on Friday to confront the worst U.S. financial crisis in decades, outlining a program that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to buy up bad mortgages and other toxic debt. Relief washed over Wall Street with a surge of buying.

“When they are trying to return to more meals at home, they don’t want to start from scratch like we would a generation or two ago,” said Tim Hammonds, president and CEO at the Food Marketing Institute, an industry trade group. “That’s why the prepared foods are so popular.”

One in every five people in the world lives in communist China. Unlike other BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the Chinese lack representative government, the rule of law administered by independent judges, basic human rights, freedom of the media, independent universities and the right of workers to move freely. Even the constitution makes clear that the government has no limits or accountability to the Chinese people.

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