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When the Chrysler plant in Newark, Del., shut its doors on Dec. 19, more than 1,000 workers there suddenly joined the ranks of the unemployed.

At least they will be able to get unemployment insurance.

Most jobless workers can’t.

Across the United States, only 37 percent of workers who lose their jobs typically collect unemployment benefits, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.

They often miss out because they didn’t earn enough while working, or their work history was not continuous enough to make them eligible under state unemployment laws — usually written in the pre-computer era when tracking payrolls was much slower.

"I think it’s a shock to people that the safety net is in such sad shape," said Maurice Emsellem, co-policy director at the National Employment Law Project, a pro-worker organization advocating for the bill. "A lot of people fall through the cracks."

At a time when the recession is a year old and the number of unemployed has risen to 10.3 million, there is a real question about where federal unemployment dollars should go.

Should they be sent directly to states’ strained employment trust funds, enabling states to keep from raising unemployment taxes on already beleaguered employers? Or should they go to expanding eligibility, supporting states whose policies provide help to more people, who in turn will spend their benefits and boost the economy?

Last year, that approach became part of a federal bill — the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act — passed in the House, but not the Senate, although then-Sen. Barack Obama was a sponsor.

Advocates like Emsellem always try to expand benefits in tough times, said Douglas J. Holmes, president of the National Foundation for Unemployment Compensation and Workers’ Compensation, a Washington business group. It would be better to skip the debate and ship the money to the state trust funds quickly, he said. "Federal money is not designed to dictate benefits state by state."

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Those who fall through the cracks tend to be low-wage, part-time, seasonal or new workers — not like the 1,000 autoworkers laid off in Delaware.

"Although low-wage workers were almost 2

The OPEC cartel agreed on Wednesday to reduce production by 2.2 million barrels a day, the group’s largest cut ever, in an effort to put a floor on falling oil prices.

It is the third time producers have agreed to reduce their output in three months. Since September, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have pledged cuts totaling 4.2 million barrels a day, or nearly 12 percent of their capacity, a record in such a short time.

But oil futures fell more than 8 percent, or $3.54, to settle at $40.06 a barrel, on Wednesday, as the market focused on the dire state of the global economy, and many experts doubted that OPEC would manage to carry out its promises, leaving markets oversupplied in the face of falling demand.

After riding a wave of rising oil prices for nearly a decade, the world’s top exporters are struggling in a weakening global economy, a dizzying slump in oil consumption and a sharp downfall in prices. In a move reminiscent of 1998, when oil fell below $10 a barrel, OPEC has asked outside producers to trim their production but seems to have found few takers.

"We want non-OPEC countries to contribute, and not just benefit from the impact of our cuts," Chakib Khelil, OPEC’s current president, said after the meeting, which was held under tight security in the coastal Algerian town of Oran.

"It’s in their own interest as well as in ours." Khelil said at a chaotic and confused news conference after the meeting.

Russia, which is not part of OPEC, sent a large delegation to Algeria, but analysts saw this as a gesture of political support that carried little more than symbolic value. Russian oil production is going to decline this year anyway because of government policies that have discouraged investments and harmed domestic producers.

The oil collapse has brought down gasoline prices for consumers, but it is devastating to producers, who have based their budgets for next year assuming prices well above $50 a barrel on line pay day loans.

The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, set the tone on Tuesday as he arrived in Algeria, when he proposed a large cut to balance the market and trim commercial oil inventories that have been swelling well above their historic levels. Other representatives quickly backed the proposal.

The Saudis had until now been wary of acting too aggressively lest they derail any economic recovery. In June, as prices were still rising, they pledged to flood the market to prevent prices from spiking. But that did not prevent oil from rising above $145 a barrel the following month.

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Now, with the economy seizing up, the Saudis seem to have become much more concerned with the drop in prices, and their ability to prevent a complete collapse. Oil has fallen by $100 a barrel, or 70 percent, since peaking five months ago. King Abdullah recently said he would like to see prices at $75 a barrel, more than 50 percent above their current levels.

The cartel has not faced such a challenging environment since the early 1980s. Oil consumption is set to decline for the first time in 25 years because of the economic crisis.

The new target sets OPEC’s production at 24.85 million barrels a day, starting Jan. 1.

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The clock with the lavender plastic rim on the back wall of H&H Convenience is an hour and 18 minutes fast. This means nothing to Almaz Nebai. She tells time by the front door.

Starting at 4:30 p.m., it opens every few minutes. That lasts three hours. After that, every 20 minutes or so for another hour, then it tapers off until midnight.

A young Hispanic woman wants her regular small pack of Podium cigarettes, the cheapest at $6 with tax. A man in Docksiders and khakis buys two cans of Arizona tea and stuffs them into a backpack. An Asian woman in heels pulls money from her Louis Vuitton wallet to pay for two packs of DuMaurier. A middle-aged man wants a small Peter Jackson Light with his two cans of Arizona.

"If I get a dollar from the cigarettes, I’m happy," says Nebai.

"With Arizona, there’s not much profit, a few cents, but my customers love it. It’s good for you."

Times are tough all over, but "not much profit," that might as well be the theme song for Ontario’s convenience stores, which have been struggling to get by since the province banned the open display of cigarettes last summer. Between 45 and 65 per cent of corner store profits came from cigarette sales; since such "power walls" were banned that’s been cut by 30 to 50 per cent.

Dave Bryans, president of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association, expects a third of Ontario’s 10,000 convenience stores will be out of business in five years unless the province curbs illegal tobacco sales and starts letting proven, reliable stores sell beer and wine.

But, for now, shopkeepers like Nebai, earning just pennies per hour, make do selling what they can.

Cigarettes, snacks and drinks pay the bills, but not all of them. Since she bought the business in April and moved into the flat at the back, she’s been hunting for deals at Costco and Cash and Carry, clicking through Internet sites to find better suppliers. Rent is $1,600 a month.

A woman at Cash and Carry sent Nebai to Imperial Tobacco, so she gets some brands delivered. The rest she buys every morning, before she opens, whatever she is low on. Podium, made in Caledonia by Lanwest Manufacturing for sale off-reserve, comes from Costco.

With a diploma in accounting from Algonquin College in Ottawa and marketing courses from Seneca, Nebai has plans for this corner north of the Dundas West subway station. There’s a Slovenian deli next door, a Jehovah’s Witness temple down the street. Budget, Price Chopper and Shoppers are nearby. Houses on the streets behind her sell for just under a half-million. The store was Lee-Bee’s West Indian Grocery for years before a couple tried it as a variety store, then gave up and sold to Nebai. She inherited candles, ceramic frogs, hair extensions and shelves of Christmas decorations with the hardware, Pringles, canned spaghetti sauce and kitchen stuff.

Around 11 one morning, she grinds Van Houtte beans for a fresh pot, splits a pack of Hostess cupcakes on two napkins and settles down to talk.

"I loved Ottawa, but when I came here, I loved Toronto, too. It was my first time driving on a highway when I came here from Ottawa."

"I found this place online for a reasonable price. It’s a really good location, the main customer is from the subway, people back and forth in the morning and evening guaranteed approval payday loans. During the day, they come from the neighbourhood. There are a lot of East Bloc people living around here. Everyone is very nice, very nice. It was a struggle at first. I was sometimes shocked that nobody was here, but it’s picking up, slowly."

She and a friend left Asmara, the once-lovely Italianate capital of Eritrea, in 1985, when the 30-year civil war with Ethiopia was at its most brutal, walking for 11 days into Sudan. She was 25. "It was a terrible time. We were hiding from Ethiopian soldiers and Eritrean fighters. But the land around us as we walked was beautiful and we made a promise, my friend and I, that we would come back. She went to Sweden. She called me a few years ago to ask, `Remember the promise?’ But she is dead now, of cancer."

There’s not much room for sentimentality. A woman in a hijab and long skirt with no time to waste floats in looking for a toy for her son, who is 4 today. She leaves with Spider-Man and a long-distance calling card.

"I am so happy here," Nebai says. "There is hope for the future. I’m always thinking, planning the strategy."

She’s been asking the Ontario Lottery Corporation for a terminal and might just get one this month. If she gets approved and there is a machine available, the security deposit runs from $2,000 to up to $6,000 for a full-scale Lotto Centre.

A key-cutting service, cellphone cards, movie rentals, maybe stamps although a store not far away already sells them and Canada Post picks its spots based on postal code. If she buys 60 DVD movies, a company will throw in another 1,000 but she needs a $100 Film Exchange Retail Licence to rent them. Her cut from the ATM machine is half the $1.50 service fee; if she buys it for $2,500, her cut is 85 per cent.

"I tried bread but I had to eat it myself. Perishables are a waste of time – people go to Price Chopper."

She tours the shelves, rating each item. "Bathroom goods are well-demanded. The house materials are really working well."

She brought a Zippo lighter display cabinet up from the basement and added cigarette cases to the stock because customers asked for them. If she gets the lottery machine, if she gets the cell phone card business (a $1,500 down payment, then $14 a month), if she can buy the ATM machine, if she can rent DVDs, if she builds up enough loyal customers, she might make it.

The store opens at 9 a.m., closes at midnight. "Sometimes, it can be like a prison." Then she smiles. "I didn’t marry, I tried to. Now I like not answering to someone."

Her sister and two brothers, one with a master’s in engineering and another with a degree in economics, wanted her to move to Germany to reunite the family, but she prefers Canada. After a refugee camp in Sudan, she had gone to England for surgery on her leg, gnarled with polio. A United Church in Ottawa sponsored her as a refugee.

"It is amazing. I never thought that I would live in Canada. We studied it in geography in school – lots of snow! – and now I’ve become a Canadian. I feel at home here. Everyone is from far away."

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Oil prices fell over 6 per cent Monday, to below US$51 a barrel, after OPEC decided not to cut production at an informal meeting in Cairo on Saturday and on more evidence the global economic slowdown will hurt demand for crude.

By midday in Europe, light, sweet crude for January delivery was down $3.62 to $50.81 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract had settled down a penny at $54.43 on Friday.

In London, January Brent crude fell $3.31 to $50.18 on the ICE Futures exchange.

On Saturday, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said that OPEC will "do what needs to be done" to shore up falling oil prices when the group meets Dec. 17 in Algeria, but for now it was "too early" to make another output cut.

Prices continued to slide despite a separate report by Iranian state TV in which OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah El-Badri said that a daily oil production cut of between 1 million and 1.5 million barrels was likely in December.

OPEC had already made an output cut of 1.5 million barrels a day in October, although analysts said the organization may want to observe the impact of that cut before committing to the another one.

El-Badri was quoted Monday on the station's website saying that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is facing a very difficult situation and plans to "restore oil prices to $90 per barrel."

But disheartening news from some of the world's largest economies pushed aside speculation about any future OPEC cuts.

Surveys of activity in the manufacturing sector in the euro zone and Britain were particularly poor on Monday. Both pointed to a sharper-than-expected contraction in output.

In China, an equivalent survey of its manufacturing sector also made for grim reading, generating fears that one of the main engines of global growth over the last few years is slowing sharply same day payday loans.

Sucden Research in London cited data from the United Nations, which now expects the global economy to grow by just 1 per cent in 2009, compared to an earlier forecast expecting growth of 2.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, Saudi King Abdullah told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah in an interview published Saturday that oil should be priced at $75 a barrel.

"They need to cut a lot to get the price to $75," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "Demand is disappearing underneath them fast."

Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari was quoted as saying Sunday that the market was oversupplied by around 2 million barrels per day and that production should be cut by that amount.

OPEC, which accounts for about 40 per cent of global supply, reduced output quotas in October by 1.5 million barrels a day.

"It will be difficult to get everyone to comply to a drastic cut," Shum said. "The market has assumed there will be a substantial OPEC cut so if they don't, there will be significant downward pressure on prices.''

Investors will be looking this week for signs of how bad the global economic slowdown may be, particularly U.S. retail sales at the start of the holiday shopping season.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures fell 5.16 cents to $1.1580 a gallon. Heating oil dropped 5.66 cents to $1.6705 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery shed 12.8 cents to $6.382 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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Naysayers who predicted the U.S. dollar’s demise as the world reserve currency of choice have been silent of late given the greenback’s meteoric recovery in recent months.

Slammed over the last several years as U.S. government budget and trade deficits mounted, the greenback was seen ceding its status as the predominant currency to the euro.

Talk of nations reducing their dollar reserves in favor of the euro prompted talk the dollar would also lose favor as the medium of exchange for commodities.

However, the global financial crisis that has rocked markets worldwide has seen investors voting with their cash and buying U.S. dollars, indicating that reports of the greenback’s death as a reserve currency have been greatly exaggerated.

“Talk of the euro replacing the dollar is off the table,” said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon. “The U.S. has the only economy in the world that supports a strong currency by policy and is an anchor for the global economy.”

The current credit freeze has its roots in the U.S. subprime mortgage market where overzealous lending in exotic debt products has led to a wave of homeowner loan defaults and problems with repackaged mortgage securities.

But the crisis went global when holders of those mortgage securities faced huge losses and became reluctant to take on additional risk through either lending themselves or buying more securities.

Investors then were quick to understand that the United States was the only nation with the political will to act quickly and the government and private sector infrastructure in place to implement policies http://paydayintime.com. The pockets of the U.S. tax payer to fund a bailout added to the allure of the U.S. currency.

“The United States continues to be the only entity sufficiently large and coordinated enough to deal with the multiple issues surrounding the credit crisis,” said Andrew B. Busch, global FX strategist BMO Capital Markets in Chicago. “It clearly is not over.”

The dollar’s value against major currencies had changed little in the first half of 2008, after a six year slide, but since mid-July when the magnitude of the credit crisis became apparent, the dollar has rebounded significantly.

The Intercontinental Exchange’s U.S. dollar index <.DXY has climbed 21.3 percent since that time, roughly corresponding to a 21.8 percent drop by the euro against the greenback.

The British pound has dropped 23 percent while the Australian dollar plunged 37.5 percent against the U.S. dollar.

Emerging market currencies have been particularly hard-hit as investors fled risk and repatriated funds either home or to the safety of the U.S. dollar.

Latin American-focused funds suffered their 20th straight week of outflows, EPFR Global data showed on Friday, losing a net $134.8 million to redemptions. Europe, Middle East and Africa funds had outflows of $189.1 million.

The U.S. dollar has gained 27 percent against the South African rand since mid-July and 21 percent against the Turkish lira. 

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say bold and far-reaching action is needed to tackle the global financial crisis when Britain unveils a multi-billion pound bank rescue package Wednesday.

The package, due to be announced at about 7 a.m. (0600 GMT), will involve what a government source has described as a large-scale injection of capital into major retail banks, some of which have lost half their value this week.

“Extraordinary times call for bold and far-reaching solutions,” Brown will say at a news conference with finance minister Alistair Darling scheduled for 9 a.m. (2:00 a.m. EDT), according to extracts released by his press office.

“This is not a time for conventional thinking or outdated dogma but for fresh and innovative intervention that gets to the heart of the problem.

“These decisions on stability and restructuring are the necessary building blocks to allow banks to return to their basic function of providing cash and investment for families and businesses (payday loans).”

Financial analysts expect the package to involve the government providing up to 50 billion pounds to the banks in exchange for equity stakes in the form of preference shares, which could see taxpayers benefit if the banks recover.

The package follows a meeting Tuesday involving Brown, Darling, Bank of England governor Mervyn King and the head of the Financial Services Authority. There was pressure from bank chief executives to act.

British media have suggested the package could also involve a stand-by facility that would effectively allow banks to tap as much money as they need, but the government source played this down. 

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Nokia, the world’s top mobile phone maker, launched its free music package on Thursday, issuing a challenge to Apple Inc’s dominance of the digital music market.

The Finnish firm also launched its first touch-screen phone 5800 Xpressmusic to rival Apple’s popular iPhone.

Nokia said at an analyst and media event in London it would start selling the phone shortly, pricing it at 279 euros ($395) excluding subsidies and taxes, which it said was roughly half the price of the other main touch-screen phones on the market.

The price means consumers on many large markets will get the phone for free from operators when signing up for contract.

“The price and positioning of the product may result in substantial demand and will undoubtedly put some pressure on Apple,” said Ben Wood, research head at CCS Insight.

Nokia said all major music labels and most independent labels will offer their tracks as part of Nokia’s ‘free’ music bundle “Comes with Music.”

“Comes with Music” and similar products from other hardware vendors could help the music industry make up for falling CD sales and cut illegal downloads.

The battle for mobile music is increasingly crowded cash advance usa. Sony Ericsson launched its music package this month in Sweden, and South Korea’s LG Electronics plans a service similar to Nokia’s. 

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VANCOUVER–United States regulators gave Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. the green light yesterday to take control of Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp., which could eventually bring a third railroad to lucrative Western U.S. coal fields.

The Surface Transportation Board said the $1.5 billion (U.S.) acquisition, announced last year, would not lessen competition in the rail industry and no shippers would lose the option of competitive services because of the takeover.

But the board said it still wants to look at the potential environmental impact of increased coal shipments over the line if Canadian Pacific decides to pursue the closely held DM&E’s plan to extend track into Wyoming’s Powder River Basin faxless payday advance.

Canadian Pacific was also told it had to continue efforts to improve safety on DM&E, and its subsidiary the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad.

Calgary-headquartered CP, Canada’s second-largest railway, which already has extensive operations in the U.S., said it had agreed to all of the conditions set by regulators.

The regulators said Canadian Pacific cannot move any coal traffic from the proposed expansion until the board has completed an environmental impact review.

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Central banks in Japan and Australia added $15.7 billion to the financial system to hold down borrowing costs, slowing the pace of cash injections as a U.S. plan to buy banks' bad debts eased credit-market jitters.

The Bank of Japan added 1.5 trillion yen ($14 billion) to the financial system in its fifth day of fund injections. The Reserve Bank of Australia added A$2.025 billion ($1.7 billion) to the financial system, about a fifth lower than the daily average for the week ended Sept. 19.

The U.S. Federal Reserve led central banks in Europe and Asia in pouring cash into global financial markets over the past week as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sparked a crisis of confidence. Stocks rallied and money-market rates dropped after the U.S. government announced a $700 billion plan to avert a financial meltdown by buying troubled assets.

“Though funding pressures are still there, some of the tightness in cash markets has eased,'' said Sally Auld, interest rate strategist at JP Morgan Securities Australia Ltd. in Sydney. The RBA “put a little bit of cash in today though it's not as dramatic as some of the injections last week.''

Japan's overnight call loan rate was at 0.25 percent after the BOJ's operation at 9:20 a.m. in Tokyo, falling from as high as 0.45 percent, according to Tokyo Tanshi Co.

The BOJ pumped 11 trillion yen into the money markets last week, its biggest injection in at least six years as central banks around the world worked together to prevent a financial meltdown. The Reserve Bank of Australia added A$12.3 billion in the five days to Sept. 19, the most in a week since August 2007.

Non-Japanese Banks

“There may have been a need for today's operation because foreign banks' repo and operation rates are high,'' said Shinsuke Kanabu, a project and research director at Central Tanshi Co no fax payday loans. in Tokyo. “If you look only at the Japanese inter- bank rates, there's no need for the BOJ injections.''

Non-Japanese banks are facing the highest premiums to borrow yen overnight since UBS AG, the European bank hardest hit by the subprime crisis, reported a record loss on Feb. 14. The BOJ last week said it will use its $60 billion swap arrangement with the Federal Reserve to supply dollars to local and foreign financial institutions as required by market conditions.

Foreign lenders pay 0.61 percent to borrow yen overnight, while Japan's banks pay 0.23 percent, according to Tokyo Tanshi.

Australian Borrowing Costs

Australian banks' borrowing costs dropped from the highest in six months, according to a gauge that measures the availability of funds in the market.

The difference between the rate banks charge each other for three-month loans and the overnight indexed swap rate stood at 75.5 basis points at 11:34 a.m. in Sydney, down from 92.5 points on Sept. 19, Bloomberg data show. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Europe's main central banks lent $71 billion on Sept. 19 as part of a coordinated effort with the Fed.

The European Central Bank poured $40 billion into the markets while the Bank of England allotted $20.8 billion out of $40 billion offered and the Swiss National Bank added $10 billion. The ECB's and the SNB's auctions were oversubscribed. The Fed on Sept. 18 almost quadrupled to $247 billion the amount of dollars central banks can auction around the world.

In repos, central banks typically buy debt securities for a set period, temporarily raising the amount of money available in the banking system. They don't signal a policy shift.

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Mark Carney on Thursday found himself back in the glass-faced tower at University and King where he used to chase business deals as a managing director with Goldman Sachs.

But this time he had a decidedly different job description.

For the past eight months the Bank of Canada governor has largely been kept out of the headlines generated by the growing chaos in the global financial system.

But this week, Carney’s role as steward of the central bank took on a more urgent profile as he quickly assembled the country’s top bankers at the Bank of Canada regional office on the 20th floor of 150 King St. W. The meeting took place the same day Canada, along with major central banks around the world, joined to orchestrate a $180 billion (U.S.) injection of desperately needed capital into the world’s wobbling money market.

The Bank of Canada’s contribution of a $10 billion backstop to the banking system was a relatively small but important vote of confidence at a time when investors worldwide were hitting the panic button. Inside the 20th-floor meeting, Carney was bound to be mapping out further action plans with bankers should the need arise. But Bank of Canada officials were divulging little of what went on, secretly ushering officials out of the building.

Those in the Canadian banking industry say they’re relieved to have the Oxford-educated banker at the helm of Canada’s central bank during these tumultuous times.

Upon his appointment last October, Carney was described by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as "a steady hand" whose international experience and understanding of high finance would "help maintain the stability of Canada’s monetary system."

Who exactly is this steady hand?

When it came time to replace David Dodge as governor of the bank last fall, Carney – the senior bureaucrat in the country’s finance department at the time – was not a gambling man’s choice for the job. Most predicted Dodge’s deputy, Paul Jenkins, would take over as Canada’s top banker, but it was Carney’s experience as a global financier that pushed him to the top.

"He has very impressive credentials, and he has the sort of optimal combination of private- and public- sector experience, which allow him to be a very strong governor," Charmaine Buskas, TD Securities senior economic strategist, said then.

Louis Gagnon, a former Bay Street banker and current professor of finance at Queen’s University, likens Carney to the second coming of his predecessor, Dodge, and says he is a sharp mind in a central bank known for a measured approach to monetary policy.

"Mark Carney is from a very pragmatic school of thought," Gagnon says payday loans. "He has a cool head … and an understanding of the world."

The son of a high school principal, the banker was born in late winter 1965 in a small village in the Northwest Territories.

An academic and an athlete, Carney was a star goaltender with his high school hockey team and valedictorian of his graduating class before leaving Canada to study economics at Harvard. He later earned a PhD at Oxford University. It was there that he met his British-born philanthropic wife, Diana.

From Oxford, he moved to London and to Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest financial firms, where, for 13 years, he trotted around the globe, banking in the world’s major markets – London, New York, Tokyo and Toronto – where he earned his "whiz kid" moniker, a title which, as the second youngest Bank of Canada governor and the youngest central banker in the G8, continues to stick.

Those who knew him when he worked at Goldman Sachs remember him as a "high flyer."

He left that post and its undoubtedly rich pay in August 2003 to join the civil service. After a brief stint with the Bank of Canada in 2003-2004, Carney moved to the Ministry of Finance.

Since moving to Ottawa, the banker, his wife, and their four children have lived in a $1.3 million home in Ottawa’s exclusive Rockliffe Park. And it’s from from his current fourth-floor office overlooking Parliament Hill that he now monitors the global markets, leading Canada’s effort to bring calm to a financial panic not seen in most investors’ memory.

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