Second Request Alert: Italian Defense Company to buy U.S. Company for $4 Billion Dollars, which is equal to now roughly 14 Euros

From Bloomberg:

Finmeccanica SpA, Italy's biggest defense company, agreed to buy U.S. military electronics maker DRS Technologies Inc. for $4 billion (2.58 billion euros) to win Pentagon contracts.
Finmeccanica offered $81 for each DRS share, according to a press release issued early today in Rome. The offer was 4.9 percent more than yesterday's DRS closing price in New York of $77.19 and 27 percent more than the shares were trading before the Wall Street Journal reported the possible combination with Parsippany, New Jersey-based DRS on May 8.

NYT: Hooray! U.S lost 20,000 jobs in April, which is way better than, 21,000!

From the New York Times:

"The American economy shed 20,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said on Friday in a report that many economists took as powerful evidence that the United States is ensnared in a recession.
It was the fourth consecutive month of decline. But the size of the loss was significantly smaller than many analysts predicted, and the unemployment rate nudged down to 5 percent, sowing hopes that the economy may not suffer as severely as some have feared."

Lazy Sunday Links: India's largest law firm, that isn't a law firm, and the British understand the subprime crisis better than the Americans

All these subprime lawsuits means leaves judges yearning for the good old days of the S&L scandals. [Financial Week]

India largest law firm isn’t exactly a law firm. Financial Post

I posted earlier about the subprime primer, which is a booklet of stick figures, now the BBC has put the subprime crisis in flow charts, because stick figure are much to beneath the British to deal with. BBC News.

Speaking of the British and subprime news, there is a very funny video detailing how the subprime crisis came about in the first place. Really it is pretty funny. YouTube
Switzerland's banking sector, once synonymous with stability and secrecy, not sure anymore if they want to be so secretive, due to stability. AFP

E-Discovery is not just a concept, it is a challenge, a challenge that we have yet to conceptualize. Matt Winstanley

Subprime News: Countrywide Co-Founder Having to Scrape by with a Meager $132 Million in earnings

And now for your heartwarming, good guy story of the day. From the Guardian:

"A key figure behind the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, Angelo Mozilo, made $132m (£61m) last year despite huge losses on unsustainable home loans at his Countrywide Financial empire.
Mozilo, 70, Countrywide's co-founder and chief executive, saw his pay and bonus fall 79% to $10.8m. But he made $121.5m by cashing in stock and share options - transactions that are under investigation by the securities and exchange commission. Before the sub-prime crisis erupted, Countrywide was the top US mortgage lender with 9m loans worth $1.5tn. But as clients failed to keep up repayments, the Californian firm lost $704m and laid off 11,000 staff. Amid rumours of bankruptcy, Countrywide agreed to a takeover by Bank of America in January. BoA plans to scrap the Countrywide name."

LA Times Staffer: Weakening Dollar Has done wonders for the Sub Prime Crisis, Other Nation's Currencies

E. Scott Reckard of the L.A. Times writes about how Fed interesting rate cuts have actually managed to keep the subprime mortgage crisis in check:

"The great mortgage reset of 2008 isn't turning out quite as advertised.

Thanks to interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, payments on sub-prime loans with expiring "teaser" rates are going up only modestly when the loans start adjusting -- by just 1% on average last month, one study found. A payment that would have risen by $450 in December is currently going up by no more than $100 and often much less, according to Tom Deutsch, an industry expert who testified recently to a housing panel of Congress."