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Negotiating for everything in a lousy economy is the new rule, according to the latest money publication from Consumer Reports titled "Rebuild Your Finances." Paying the sticker price for a product or service may be paying too much. In fact, a new poll by Consumer Reports found that more than 66 percent of Americans have tried to negotiate for a better deal in the past six months.

Research released in Brussels by leading credit management services company Intrum Justitia shows that European governments could provide a EUR 65bn stimulus to their home economies by simply paying invoices owed to suppliers in full and on time.

While the rate of decline in new-vehicle retail sales has slowed in May, compared with the previous 12 months, a high level of consumer uncertainty remains, which has led to a flattening of retail sales and a projected delay in market recovery of two to three months beyond the spring selling season, according to J.D. Power and Associates, which gathers real-time transaction data from more than 10,000 dealerships across the United States.

Despite their relative newness, companies are embracing Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking tools, blogs and webcasts for internal communications and as part of their overall technology mix, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm.

China consumed 31.47 million metric tons of oil in April, up a strong 4% from the corresponding month of 2008, a Platts analysis of official data showed May 21.

National employment at year-end stood at 774.80 million persons, went up 4.90 million persons year-on-year. Of the total, the employment in primary industry reached 306.54 million persons, occupied 39.6 percent of national employment; that of secondary industry amounted for 211.09 million persons, accounted for 27.2 percent; that of tertiary industry totaled 257.17 million persons, took up 33.2 percent.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for the U.S. increased 1.0 percent, The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ (CEI) decreased 0.2 percent and The Conference Board Lagging Economic Index™ (LAG) decreased 0.5 percent in April.

Mortgage rates were all over the map this week, with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate inching higher to 5.24 percent. According to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey, the average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.43 discount and origination points.

Fitch Ratings said that Korea's banks will continue to face challenges to their profitability due to higher than usual credit costs sustained through a slowdown in the domestic economy amid the global downturn, albeit tempered by the Korean government's wide-ranging fiscal stimulus efforts. Nevertheless, the capitalisation of the banks remains satisfactory, which should continue, as aided by government support if necessary. Both foreign and local currency liquidity for the banks have also eased amidst central bank support and are in line with general liquidity trends globally - although liquidity to the real economy is likely to remain tight for some time to come, which could compound credit costs to an extent.

The World Bank revealed that while the policy responses have been encouraging, the global economic and financial crisis is having a deepening impact on households in EU10 countries, and urged Governments to restructure their public finances to help mitigate the social costs of the crisis.