News Roundup, 3/19/08: A Slasher at the Fed

Economic news continued to dominate the headlines yesterday, and with good reason.

The Bear Sterns collapse and subsequent buyout by JP Morgan provided an abject lesson in financial overreach and continued to create shock waves across the banking industry.

The Fed, as it had scrambled to work the deal between JP Morgan and Bear Sterns, also scrambled to stop the bleeding on Wall Street with a new rate cut. That .75 percent reduction in the federal funds rate made for a good day at the stock exchange, but even though Fed officials kept the possibility of further action afloat, some analysts think they are running out of room for cuts like this.

Analysts in a different industry reported that the price of electricity in Texas has increased more than 21 percent over the last six weeks. Also reflecting higher energy prices, Delta announced plans to offer voluntary severance to 30,000 employees in an effort to eliminate 2,000 positions. It is part of a plan to accommodate the spiraling costs of fuel.

In presidential news, Barack Obama went to Philadelphia yesterday and gave what may end up as one of the defining speeches of his political career on race in America and his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. We have video of the speech as well as a link to the complete text here.

After the collapse of the primary revote plan in Florida, attention to turned to Michigan, and they are still trying to work out their own plan. You can expect to hear quite a bit about this in the next two days as state Democrats are aiming to finish the plan by Thursday, when the legislature breaks for two weeks for Easter.