Below The Beltway

Mad Money’s Jim Cramer on Bear Stearns last week

J.P. Morgan may be dead, but his firm is coming to the rescue of Wall Street once again:
In a shocking deal reached on Sunday to save Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a mere $2 a share to buy all of Bear — less than one-tenth the firm’s market price on Friday.
As part of [...]

While campaigning in Ohio, Hillary Clinton has claimed that she was against the North American Free Trade Agreement from the beginning. As Barack Obama has noted, it’s very convenient for her to say that now because she never took a public position on the treaty as First Lady.
So what was her position ?
Former Labor Secretary [...]

Good for business, bad for teenage boys:
Maybe it was the lusty mannequins in its stores, the massage oil on its shelves or the overabundance of cleavage on the glittery runway of its annual TV fashion show. But yesterday, Victoria’s Secret chief executive Sharen J. Turney acknowledged that the chain had gotten “too sexy.”
Is such a [...]

It was another bad day on Wall Street:
Stocks were sharply lower on Wall Street on Friday after a painful dose of weak economic data reignited fears that a recession may be imminent. A new round of woes in the financial industry also contributed to the sell-off.
The Dow Jones industrials dropped more than 100 points right [...]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. may make a bid for Yahoo designed to fend of Microsoft’s takeover plan:
News Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are in discussions about combining MySpace and other News Corp.-owned online properties with Yahoo, according to people familiar with the matter.
The discussions are aimed at helping Yahoo [...]

This is certain to be a big deal:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Microsoft made an unsolicited $44.6 billion cash and stock bid for Yahoo Friday, a deal that could shake up the competitive and lucrative market for Internet search.
The deal would pay Yahoo shareholders $31 a share, which represents a 62% premium from where Yahoo stock [...]

Starbucks is taking steps to stop the downturn in it’s business over the past two years:
As it begins a major turnaround effort, Starbucks on Wednesday announced a slight gain in quarterly profits and a significant slowdown in the rate of growth in the United States as it seeks to recapture its former glory.
Howard D. Schultz, [...]

The Federal Reserve Board has cut a key interest rate for the second time in a week:
The Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by half a percentage point today, the second rate cut in nine days, in an aggressive move to try to prevent a recession.
The central bank cut the federal funds rate, the [...]

Even a last minute interest rate cut from the Fed couldn’t stop the inevitable:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — U.S. stocks plunged at the start of trading Tuesday, with investors ignoring the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut to join the global selloff on recession fears.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 400 points. The Nasdaq composite [...]