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In the current credit market where access to syndicated loans to finance large transactions remains limited, one of the few places that deals are getting done in the U.S. is in the middle market, according to the Transaction Services group of PricewaterhouseCoopers. For the first half of 2009, 135 middle market deals were announced with an aggregate deal value of $39.2 billion. "As in the last recession, it's the smaller transactions that are getting financed because deals of that size don't require assistance from the capital markets or the structuring of highly leveraged loans," said Robert Filek, a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers' Transaction Services practice.

Reduced revenues will drive credit card issuers to introduce cards with annual fees to consumers in the near future, according to Auriemma Consulting Group, a management consulting firm that serves the cards and payments industry. Cards without annual fees will not feature rewards and will only offer cardholders basic benefits.

The unemployment rate for the OECD area was 8.3% in May 2009, 0.3 percentage point higher than the previous month and 2.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

"I spent the better part of the last two weeks talking with economists from around the world. Although the content of those meetings is confidential, I can share my general conclusions about what the meetings suggest about the state of the global recession, the outlook for financial markets, and the world that we are likely to see emerge on the other side of the crisis," says Diane Swonk, chief economist of Mesirow Financial, in her special international edition of Themes on the Economy.

OECD composite leading indicators (CLIs) for May 2009 point to tangible signs of improvement in the outlook of most OECD economies. Potential recovery signals are emerging in Italy and France, with indications of troughs emerging in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, China and India. The trough signals are more tentative in Russia.

Consumers around the world overwhelmingly prefer foods and beverages in glass to other packaging materials, but new research commissioned by Owens-Illinois, Inc. suggests consumers struggle to find their favorite brands packaged in glass on store shelves.

Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch Research has raised its global economic growth forecasts for 2010 to 3.7 percent from 3.2 percent, driven by signs of recovery in the United States and China.

One in every three employees of companies in the United Kingdom and the United States is very fearful of losing his or her job, and a staggering 98 percent of employees in the UK report having some level of fear about their job security, according to a recent survey by change management consulting firm Stromberg Consulting and conducted by Braun Research. Yet in an interesting twist, on the surface, data suggest productivity may be up overall: 40 percent in the UK and more than half of those fearful in the US say they are working harder as a result.

Will G8 leaders this week pull off a getaway in which they take the money pledged to developing nations in Africa, and run with it? In a cruel mimicry of "The Italian Job" movie, it appears a heist is already being planned as Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, the group's chairman, arranges a getaway under the cover of a new approach toward aid, Christian humanitarian agency World Vision warns.

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that European prices of 170 best-selling drugs averaged 40 percent less than U.S. prices in 2008. Within Europe prices varied substantially, from an average of 55 percent of U.S. prices in Italy to 70 percent of U.S. prices in Germany. European prices for biologics averaged 86 percent of U.S. prices.