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Ford Motor Co. this week launched a much-anticipated multimedia advertising campaign for the Flex crossover vehicle that relies on the Woodlawn stamping plant for a major share of its body components.

The automaker (NYSE: F) hopes the effort will light a fire under sales which, in the absence of a national campaign, have not taken off.

Flex began hitting dealer lots in June. Since then, 5,593 units have been sold, including 2,010 in August, according to sales data released Sept. 3.

Local plant officials said last May that when production is up to speed, Flex will account for about 11 percent of the facility’s output, compared to 37 percent for Edge and Lincoln MKX, 28 percent for Crown Victor and GMC Trucks free credit report .com.

F-Series pickup trucks and the Ford Ranger represent the remainder of the plant’s production of body sides, front doors, hoods, quarter panels, roofs and other components.

The facility’s 1,116 employees produce 80 percent of the stamped steel parts for the Flex.

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Federal regulators on Wednesday accused two former Wall Street brokers of defrauding their customers by making more than $1 billion in unauthorized purchases of securities tied to subprime mortgages.

The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a civil lawsuit that two former Credit Suisse Securities brokers led corporate customers to believe that auction-rate securities being purchased in their accounts were backed by federally-guaranteed student loans and were safe like cash.

The SEC said the securities were backed by subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations and other high-risk investments. The agency is seeking unspecified restitution and civil fines against the brokers, Julian Tzolov and Eric Butler, who were suspended by Credit Suisse last year.

Attorneys representing Tzolov and Butler didn’t immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.

Credit Suisse (CS) said the two resigned last September "after we detected their prohibited activity and promptly suspended them."

The New York investment firm said it immediately informed the SEC of their activities and has continued to assist the agency in its investigation.

Andrew Calamari, associate director of the SEC’s New York regional office, said the case shows "how the recent turmoil in the subprime market has affected even investors who had no intention of buying subprime securities."

In its suit filed in federal court in Manhattan, the SEC said Tzolov and Butler deceived foreign corporate customers by sending them e-mail confirmations in which the terms "St payday loans. Loan" or "Education" were added to names of other types of securities purchased for the customers.

The two brokers also frequently deleted references in the e-mails to "CDO," for collateralized debt obligations, or "mortgage" from the names of the securities purchased, the agency said. CDOs are complex financial instruments that combine various slices of debt.

As a result, customers were stuck holding more than $800 million in securities that lost their liquidity and value when the market for auction-rate securities began to collapse in August 2007, according to the SEC.

In recent months at least eight major investment banks, including Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS, Fortune 500), Citigroup Inc. (C, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), have signed deals with federal and state regulators to buy back more than $50 billion worth of auction-rate securities. The regulators alleged that the banks misled customers into believing that the investments were safe. 

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The only thing to fear in the slowing Chinese economy may be excessive fear of a slowdown itself.

Some worrying is warranted. But rushing into a fiscal stimulus, a hot topic of late, could make the economy a bubbling cauldron of unstable growth and inflation, its biggest problems just a few months ago.

“It’s very easy for them to relax policy more than they should,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong. “All of a sudden you could see a return of overheating risks.”

China’s economy has decelerated markedly, the latest evidence coming this week in surveys that showed its manufacturing sector was shrinking for the first time in three years.

Disruptions from the Olympics, when scores of factories were shuttered to clean the air, likely exaggerated the slump but the trend of a slowing economy is clear enough payday advance lenders. China’s annual growth was 10.1 percent in the second quarter, well off last year’s scorching 11.9 percent pace.

That has prompted calls for government spending to prop up momentum. Speculation has run high that Beijing might craft a hefty stimulus package, with Chinese media reports talking about plans for tax cuts, academics recommending pump-priming and exporters pleading for support.

Resisting such appeals is made difficult by the fact that China could easily afford a cash splurge.

The overall national budget turned to a surplus of 173.9 billion yuan, or 0.7 percent of GDP, last year. Total government revenue grew 30.5 percent from a year earlier in the first seven months of 2008, outpacing expenditure. 

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Automakers are expected to post a 10th consecutive month of U.S. sales declines on Wednesday as incentives on slow-selling trucks and SUVs and General Motors Corp’s employee pricing promotion failed to ignite demand from struggling consumers in August.

Analysts see automakers posting double-digit declines in U.S. auto sales for August — adding to the longest monthly losing streak for the industry since the domestic recession of 2001.

U.S. auto sales may have been down anywhere from 14 to 19 percent industrywide in August from a year earlier, according to analysts, but should have been up slightly from the 16-year low reported in July.

August sales are expected to reflect the continued shift toward smaller, more economical passenger cars and away from large pickup trucks and SUVs, as well as some difficulty supplying fuel efficient vehicles customers want.

U.S.-based GM, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC — which have a much higher percentage of sales linked to the larger vehicles than transplant carmakers — are expected to have felt the most impact from the continued shift.

Toyota Motor Corp, the No bad credit payday loan. 2 auto seller in the United States, is also expected to report sales declines. Analysts see Honda Motor Co Ltd’s sales ranging from a slight gain to a big decline and Nissan Motor Co Ltd posting sales growth of about 2 percent.

“Light vehicle sales in the U.S. appear to have continued at depressed levels through August, despite the very generous incentive programs that several major manufacturers have launched in recent weeks,” Lehman Brothers analyst Brian Johnson said in a note to clients.

Auto sales are a closely watched and early key indicator of consumer demand in the United States for big ticket items, with investors focused on whether the second-quarter economic growth will be sustained through the rest of 2008. 

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Gas prices zoomed higher in states along the Gulf of Mexico as workers on offshore oil rigs abandon ship ahead of Hurricane Gustav which became a category 4 storm on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the national average price of gasoline crawled up for a second day in a row. A gallon of regular unleaded gas rose by about a penny to $3.682 a gallon overnight, according to the motorist group AAA.

The price increase was most dramatic in Mississippi, where the statewide average for unleaded gasoline rose about 4 cents a gallon on Saturday. Gas rose by about 5 cents a gallon in the coastal cities of Biloxi, Gulfport and Pascagoula, said AAA.

Gas also rose by about 4 cents a gallon in Louisiana. Alabama saw a daily increase of about 3 cents. In Texas prices rose more than 2 cents, and in Florida prices rose by more than a penny, according to AAA. In New Orleans, gas prices rose by just over 4 cents a gallon. All of these areas are dependent upon oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as a major part of their oil supply.

In comparison, gas prices declined overnight in New York, New Jersey, California, states that are not directly dependent on the Gulf.

"Prices are more affected down South, while New York is supplied through [New York] Harbor," said Fred Rozell, oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service.

Rozell said these increases are particularly painful to Mississippi, not just because the price increases are the most dramatic there, but because it’s a state where people tend to have less discretionary income.

"I think some of those areas are going to get hit hard again and it’s really going to squeeze people," said Rozell.

Get ready for high gas prices: The price increases are likely to continue, said Rozell, partly because of the storm, and partly because of recent increases in wholesale gasoline prices, which tend to lead retail prices http://payday-faxless.com. Rozell expects prices nationwide to increase by 10 cents a gallon over the next five to seven days, or by 15 to 25 cents in the Gulf Coast states.

Hurricane Gustav smashed into the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, killing more than 50 people and causing extensive flooding. The storm headed west and whipped into Jamaica at midday on Friday. The storm crashed through the Caymans and Cuba as it headed for the Gulf of Mexico. It built into a category 3 hurricane and now threatens to smash into New Orleans and the surrounding region early next week.

If the storm continues along its projected course, it could threaten the 4,000 drilling platforms and 33,000 miles of pipeline in the Gulf Coast, which sends 1.3 million barrels a day to the Gulf Coast’s 56 refineries.

"We are seeing [gas price] increases here that are based on the possibility that there may be some supply dislocation," said Peter Beutel, oil analyst with the firm Cameron Hanover. "That would affect supply close to the affected area, as opposed to anywhere else." 

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Japan unveiled a stimulus package with $18 billion in fresh spending to shore up its flagging economy on Friday as figures showed that inflation has spiked to its highest in nearly 11 years, denting consumer spending.

Measures in the package span discounts on expressway tolls to assistance to farms and help for part-time workers to find better jobs. Funds are also earmarked for better medical care, ecological technology, housing loans and education, according to the Cabinet Office.

Economists are skeptical that the package will help revive Japan’s economy, which shrank 2.4% at an annual pace in the second quarter.

And critics call it a publicity stunt to lift Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s dismal approval ratings.

"This is just reckless spending," Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said on nationally televised news. "The package is aimed at getting voters’ attention in anticipation of the next election."

All told, the value of the programs involved comes to $107.5 billion. Aside from the $18 billion cash infusion, most of the package consists of non-spending measures such as lower road tolls and loans to businesses.

Friday’s package did not include tax breaks, but cuts will be considered in the future, the government said.

Masamichi Adachi, senior economist for JP Morgan Securities in Tokyo, called the new spending a "drop in the bucket" compared to Japan’s total gross domestic product of about $4.6 trillion.

"It’s definitely positive, but to what extent (is the question)," he said.

July economic figures released Friday painted a mixed picture of the Japanese economy. Industrial production rose modestly, but the outlook is choppy. The jobless rate fell and retail sales rose. Household spending declined but not as steeply as expected.

The rapid acceleration in inflation was the most alarming of all the indicators released.

Japan’s core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food prices but includes energy, rose 2.4% in July, the quickest pace in almost 11 years, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

While Japan’s economy is indeed slowing, many economists see the downturn as mild, with little risk of the sort of deep recession that crippled the country in the 1990s.

"We’ve been calling this a ’shallow recession,’ and the data today tend to support that view," Adachi said low fee cash advance. "But that doesn’t mean they point toward a quicker recovery either."

The Bank of Japan, meanwhile, is unlikely to tighten monetary policy in response to inflation, even though July’s figure surpasses the central bank’s inflation target range of 0-2 percent. Last week, policy board members kept the key interest rate unchanged at 0.5%.

So-called core-core inflation excluding food and energy rose a modest 0.2%, indicating that huge price gains have yet to permeate all sectors.

Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) economists Takuji Okubo and Masayuki Kichikawa said earlier this week that current inflation appears to be a short-term trend.

"Going forward, whether core measures of CPI excluding food and energy would show signs of inflation would be the key factor in determining (the Bank of Japan’s) actions," they said.

Overall CPI was up 2.3% in July, while core CPI for the Tokyo area rose 1.5% in August.

Among other key economic data, Japan’s industrial production in July was up 0.9% from the previous month on a seasonally adjusted basis, posting the first rise in two months on higher output by makers of cars and electronics.

"Improved external demand for products of those industries in July seemed to be in the background of their industrial production gains," said UBS (UBS) economist Akira Maekawa in a research memo.

The news cheered investors, who helped push the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index up 2.9% Friday. Stronger-than-expected economic growth figures in the U.S. in the second quarter - up 3.3% at an annual pace - also lifted sentiment.

The outlook for industrial production looks uneven. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it expects production to fall 2.9% in August before increasing 3.4% in September.

Japan’s unemployment rate fell from 4.1% to 4% in July.

Meanwhile, spending by Japanese households slipped 0.5% from a year earlier but was more robust than anticipated. Hotter weather spurred sales in items like air conditioners and certain types of food, Maekawa said.

Retail sales in the country rose 1.9% in July from the previous year, the government said. 

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Several major U.S. refiners said early checks on Monday showed their facilities were unharmed by Hurricane Gustav, but at least two others were said to be considering dipping into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep operations going after the storm shut down key waterways.

Gustav weakened to Category 2 before roaring ashore near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Monday, potentially sparing the kind of damage that the region’s platforms, rigs and refineries suffered at the hands of more powerful Katrina three years ago.

Offshore operators said remote sensors indicated that major platforms remained where they were moored before the storm, although Shell, the region’s largest producer, said it may take three to five days to restore production.

Energy companies had to shut in all 1.3 million barrels of U.S. offshore oil production — a quarter of U.S. output — as well as 7.06 billion cubic feet per day in natural gas supply, or nearly all of the 15 percent of national production the Gulf provides, as Gustav ploughed through the region.

By late Monday night, Gustav had subsided to a tropical storm, with winds of 60 miles per hour (96.5 kph), as it moved inland across Louisiana.

U.S fast cash advance loan. crude stood at $111.07 a barrel by 12:15 a.m. EDT, about 33 cents below trading levels late on Monday, when prices slumped $4 on easing concerns about Gustav, which had been called the biggest threat to the sector since 2005’s devastation.

Thirteen refineries with a combined capacity of 2.67 million barrels per day (bpd) — 15 percent of the country’s total — were shut by late Monday, but early signs suggested many had been spared.

Valero Energy Corp said an initial check of its 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery at St Charles, Louisiana, refinery showed no significant structural damage from Gustav, and that the plant had electrical power. 

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