Things are really looking up – don’t you think?

The state of California needs to come up with $23 billion to get through the year. The state money might be completely gone in just a couple of months. The earlier plan was to keep the state solvent well into next year, but it was quickly knocked out of balance by the deteriorating economy.

CBS first-quarter revenue falls 13% as the ad slump takes a toll on the company, whose properties include the CBS network, radio stations and billboards. reported a first-quarter net loss of $55.3 million, or 8 cents a share. That compared with net income of $244.3 million, or 36 cents, for the same period last year.

In New Zealand, the jobless rate had climbed to a six-year high and continues to climb

Royal Bank of Scotland fell to a small first-quarter loss after bad debts quadrupled and it took another 2.1 billion pound writedown on risky assets. Britain's second biggest by market value, now 70 percent owned by the government, reported a first-quarter loss of 44 million pounds, compared with a 479 million pound profit a year ago.

US Treasury yields soared on Thursday after a 30-year government bond auction saw poor demand, highlighting the balancing act facing central banks seeking to keep interest rates low while selling record amounts of debt.

American International Group reported a $4.35bn net loss in the first quarter, reflecting continuing markdowns of the value of credit insurance sold by its financial products unit.

Taiwan’s exports fell by more than expected last month, Exports in April fell 34 per cent from a year ago to $14.9bn, the eighth consecutive month of decline and steeper than the 28.2 per cent consensus forecast of economists.

Mexico going to introduce a wide-ranging tax reform, possibly as early as next year, that would increase taxes and allow the government to abandon its strict spending limitations during difficult times. In other words, cutting spenditures is not really the way to go for these a-holes either. Just keep spending and everything will be fine…

Toyota, the worlds largest car manufacturer have announce a loss of $8bn for the past quarter and they expect the losses to continue at least during this year.