Unflinchingly, the unemployment once again held steady in August to sit at 9.1%, basically unchanged for more than a year and well below the ‘normal’ unemployment rate of only 5.5%. With this, the number of unemployed persons sat at 14.0 million while the unemployment rates for adult men was 8.9%, for adult women was 8%,…
American Express Travel has partnered with Smithsonian Journeys to offer Smithsonian Journeys’ cultural and educational group trips. When booking with an American Express Charge Card, Cardmembers will receive a gift certificate to Longitude, an on-line travel bookstore. Cardmembers with a Platinum Card or Gold Card will receive a $100 gift certificate when purchasing vacations $3,000 or more and a $50 certificate for vacations under that amount. American Express Green Card members receive a $50 gift certificate for any vacation. Smithsonian Journeys, the travel program of the renowned Smithsonian Institution, is the largest museum-based travel program in the world with more than 250 annual departures to all seven continents.
Cendant Corporation came clean yesterday on its investigation of accounting irregularities and errors committed by CUC International, one of the two companies that merged to create Cendant last year. Cendant says it will reduce its earnings from last year by $392 million.Quarterly financial statements for 1998 and the comparable periods of 1997 will be filed with the SEC on Form 10-Q this morning. Full restated, audited financial statements for Cendant’s fiscal years 1997, 1996 and 1995 will be filed with the SEC on Form 10-K/A later this month. Cendant uncovered more than $300 million in phony revenue booked by CUC and more than $200 million in accounting errors. CUC’s founder and Cendant’s chairman, Walter Forbes, along with nine other Cendant directors from CUC, resigned last month as CUC’s systematic fraud was uncovered. Cendant was formed by a merger of HFS Corp. and CUC International. CUC specialized in club memberships marketed to credit card holders. Cendant’s market value has declined $20 billion in the wake of the scandal.