Check-processing jobs being trimmed
WASHINGTON — People are writing fewer checks, so the Federal Reserve is consolidating most check-processing operations into four regional centers and cutting 1,740 positions around the country.
The moves, announced Tuesday and planned over the next four years, will reduce the number of Fed employees processing checks by more than half, from the current 3,300. Most of the remaining workers will be in four regional check-processing sites in Atlanta, Dallas, Cleveland and Philadelphia.
Fourteen processing centers will lose 50 or more positions, according to Tuesday's announcement. They are Baltimore; Cincinnati, Ohio; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Denver; Des Moines, Iowa; Jacksonville, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; Minneapolis; Los Angeles; St. Louis, Mo.; Seattle; Utica, N.Y.; and Windsor Locks, Conn.
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2 oil companies opt out of Chavez deals
CARACAS, Venezuela — Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips refused to sign deals Tuesday to keep pumping heavy oil under tougher terms in Venezuela's Orinoco River basin, signaling their departure from one of the world's largest oil deposits.
Analysts said the move won't have a major effect on supplies or lead to higher prices at U.S. pumps because production will shift to other producers who agreed to the pacts.
U.S.-based Chevron Corp., BP PLC, France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA — signed deals to accept minority shares in the oil projects under new terms set by President Hugo Chavez's government.
Elogio Del Pino of the state oil company said Houston-based ConocoPhillips will maintain a 50 percent share in the Deltana Platform natural-gas project.
Confidence taking a tumble in June
NEW YORK — Consumer confidence slid in June as Americans began to worry that high gas prices and a slumping housing industry may be undermining the job market.
The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index, meant to measure how good shoppers feel about the economy and employment, fell to the lowest level in almost a year.
A two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve begins today. The Fed is expected to keep interest rates steady at 5.25 percent, but investors are watching for clues about future moves.
Bear Stearns buys time for hedge fund
NEW YORK — Bear Stearns Cos. needs to invest only half of the $3.2 billion it initially pledged to rescue one of its ailing hedge funds, the company said Tuesday.
The Wall Street investment bank said it will provide about $1.6 billion in secured financing to its Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Fund after the fund sold some assets to partially mollify lenders.
The fund invests in securities underpinned by risky mortgage-backed bonds. Its assets fell sharply amid an increase in defaults of subprime mortgages.
The financing buys time for the fund to boost earnings to repay investors and lenders.
Cigarette maker closing N.C. plant
RICHMOND, Va. — Altria Group Inc., parent of the Philip Morris cigarette companies, will cut in half its U.S. manufacturing base as it moves cigarette production for non-U.S. markets to Europe.
The manufacturing shift announced Tuesday comes amid Wall Street speculation that Altria would soon move to split its domestic and international tobacco businesses into two companies.
Philip Morris USA will transfer all production from its Concord, N.C., plant in Cabarrus County to its Richmond production center, which will become its sole U.S. plant by 2011.