Unemployment Claims Figures Mixed
In the week ending March 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 366,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 375,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The four-week moving average was 358,000, an increase of 1,750 from the previous week's revised average of 356,250.

Durable Goods Orders Fell
New orders for manufactured durable goods in February fell $3.6 billion, or 1.7 percent, to $210.6 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday. This was the second consecutive monthly decrease and followed a 4.7 percent January decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 2.6 percent. Excluding defense, new orders fell 1.6 percent.

Privacy and Personal Health
Many big-name companies — Microsoft, Google and Aetna, to name a few — are launching initiatives aimed at helping people take control of their personal health-care information and making it more useful to them, MarketWatch.com reports: “While this may be good news for consumers looking to collect, store and selectively share their health-care information in a digital format, the elephant in the room is privacy.”

Spending Rose 0.1 Percent
Last month, personal income increased 0.5 percent, disposable personal income (DPI) rose 0.5 percent and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) improved 0.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday. In January, personal income advanced 0.3 percent, DPI increased 0.4 percent and PCE increased 0.4 percent, based on revised estimates. Real disposable income increased 0.3 percent in February, compared with an increase of 0.1 percent in January. Real PCE remained unchanged in February, and increased 0.1 percent in January. The spending increase is the least in more than a year, Bloomberg.com reports.

Considering Spending All Your Rebate?
Rising gasoline prices mean that up to a third of your economic-stimulus rebate check — designed to boost the U.S. economy through spending at stores, restaurants and other businesses — could be spent buying gasoline, most of which is imported from abroad,” says CNN.com. “The rebate goes into the tank, and then finds its way into economies far from our own,” Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told CNN.

Weak Dollar Adds to Price of Oil
The U.S. currency’s protracted slide was a big contributor to oil’s march to nearly $112 in recent weeks, The New York Times reports. The price settled at $105 on Friday. On a brighter note, the number of days of oil in reserves has risen steadily since January and is now at 21.3, says the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Refiners Say Margins Too Weak; Cut Back
“We expect refiners to continue limiting production of gasoline in the coming week due to the weak margins,” Back Bay Research analyst Jacques H. Rosseau told MarketWatch last week. “Refining stocks have declined significantly over the past few weeks, and appear to be pricing in a worst-case, no-demand-growth scenario, in our view.”

Diesel Fuel Costs $4 per Gallon
Nationwide, diesel is currently averaging $3.989 per gallon and has gone up 70.9 cents in the last five weeks — all of which have been record-breaking — according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Association (EIA). And in some parts of the U.S., diesel is already exceeding the $4 per gallon mark.

Vehicle Sales Down but Rising
March’s new-vehicle sales (including fleet sales) are expected to be 1.33 million units, a 13.2 percent decrease from March 2007 and a 13.9 percent increase from February 2008, according to Edmunds.com (via BusinessWire). "Some shoppers seem to be waiting for dramatic incentive announcements that seem inevitable, while other consumers are likely more focused on general economic and personal financial concerns," Jesse Toprak, Executive Director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com, stated.

Ford Sells Rover and Jaguar to Tata
Ford Motor Company announced last week it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Jaguar Land Rover operations to India-based Tata Motors. “The total amount to be paid in cash by Tata Motors for Jaguar Land Rover upon closing will be approximately US$2.3 billion,” according to a statement. “At closing, Ford will then contribute up to approximately US$600 million to the Jaguar Land Rover pension plans.”

Strike Leads to More Shutdowns
The strike of 3,650 workers at American Axle is causing General Motors to shut down its 30th plant. Renee Rogers, an American Axle spokeswoman, told the Detroit Free Press the issues were as follows: wages, benefits, retirement, buy-out and buy-down incentives. American Axle CEO Dick Dauch told the Free Press that the company has the ability to move the work to other plants around the world. But he said that is not a move he wants to make.

Machine Shops Will Hum
Boeing has said it is planning to outsource “70 percent of all of the parts for its 787 aircraft” — known as the Dreamliner — and that the plane "promises to be one of the company’s all-time best selling models,” says American Machinist. Meanwhile, “Lockheed Martin continues to look for sources outside of its own facilities to produce nearly half of the parts it needs for the variety of aircraft and aerospace programs it manages.”

Bush Picks New FTC Chairman
The President has announced his intention of designating the Federal Trade Commission’s William E. Kovacic as the next chairman of the FTC, following the March 30, 2008, departure of Deborah Platt Majoras, according to a statement from Majores at the FTC Web site. Majoras resigned to take a position with Procter & Gamble, says The New York Times.

Payback for Enron Victims
The largest bank in the U.S. paid $1.7 billion to creditors in Enron-related litigation. Citi is forfeiting $4.3 billion of claims against Enron, and Enron is canceling all claims against Citi, according to Forbes. Other allegedly guilty banks have already paid a combined $1.8 billion in cash for the Enron crimes.

Reformed Banking Regulations on Horizon
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposed merging or eliminating institutions including the Securities and Exchange Commission, and creating a controversial new role of super-cop for the Federal Reserve, according to The Wall Street Journal. “We need regulation, but if we have it, it should be just structured in a way that it has some way of being more effective,” Paulson said.