"In one of his first public acts as Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner established a policy aimed at increasing the transparency and accountability of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Treasury will now post all TARP contracts on the Internet," writes Blank Rome Financial Reform Watch here.

Among the deals posted so far: "the agreements of the major nine institutions that first partook in the Capital Purchase Program; the Citigroup contract under the Targeted Investment Program; the AIG deal under the Systemically Significant Failing Institutions Program; and the GM, GMAC, and Chrysler contracts under the Automotive Industry Financing Program." But Geithner's staff is still suppressing "confidential and proprietary information."

This stuff is written in deep legalese, and in Adobe pdf documents that aren't too searchable. Look for "Terms" if you want data on how much, at what percent, for how long: 

U.S. Treasury's bailout page

"The U.S. mutual fund industry as a whole lost nearly $3 trillion in assets under management in 2008 to depreciation and redemptions," reports Financial Times' www.ignites.com newsletter, citing data from consultant Strategic Insight. That's meant mass job cuts at Fidelity Investments, Legg Mason and other industry leaders.

Still, a couple of dozen fund firms with big bond portfolio actually gained business during the year. The biggest increases by dollar value, according to Ignites and Strategic Insight:

Economists and politicians enjoy the notion that metro Philadelphia is insulated from recession because we are so disproportionately dependent on colleges, medical schools, hospitals, healthcare and pharma companies, instead of volatile factory or financial employment.

But eds and meds aren't saving Pennsylvania from the recession. As universities freeze their budgets, drugmakers cut back marketing plans and hospital admission growth slows, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's "coincident index" -- a measure combining the size of the workforce, typical hours worked, unemployment, and inflation-adjusted wages and salaries -- has been falling a lot more quickly in Pennsylvania than the national average:

              December 2008       1-Month   3-Month   12-Month
              Coincident Index    Change    Change     Change

Pennsylvania       142.9        -1.5%        -3.4%    -7.2%
New Jersey          158.3        -0.8%        -1.8%    -3.0%
Delaware              149.5        -1.0%        -2.5%    -5.5%

US                         157.8        -0.3%         -0.8%    -0.9%  

 That's bad news for the state's growing budget deficit. But Pennsylvania's weakness is a long-term trend: The index is based on the base year 1992, when its value was set at 100. Since then, according to the index, New Jersey job growth and pay has kept pace with the nation, Delaware (with its declining chemical and auto plants) has lagged, and Pennsylvania is far behind.

"Pennsylvania seems to get hit harder during recessions, historically speaking," said Jason Novak, senior economic analyst at the Philadelphia Fed. The state's been in decline, relative to the U.S. as a whole, for decades. Central and Western Pennsylvania are still losing manufacturing jobs, and lately the recession-resistant industries of metro Philadelphia haven't been adding jobs fast enough to offset those losses. "The growth rates for eds and meds have been weakening," down to about 2% a year, instead of 4%," Novak said. "The growth we were seeing in those (sectors) a few years ago, we're not seeing now."

J&J Snack Foods, Pennsauken, overcame higher commodity prices and weak demand in its mall and cafeteria markets to boost sales and profits last year by finding new store outlets for newly-acquired Daddy Ray fig bars,Tio Pepe churros, Dogster biscuits and other small junk food and snack brands. J&J  now boasts triple the sales and more than ten times the share price of that iconic Philadelphia lunchbox cake and pie baker, Tastykake. Should they join forces? See today's PhillyDeals print column here.
   

Drugmakers Pfizer and Wyeth have filed a high-stakes prenuptial agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in advance of their planned $68 billion, job-destroying combination: 

- If Pfizer can't quite raise the money it needs to do the deal, and cancels, it will pay Wyeth $4.5 billion

- If Wyeth changes its mind, it has to pay Pfizer $1.5 billion. Or $2.7 billion. Depends on how and when it pulls out.

For all their starry-eyed promises, they don't quite trust each other. Or the times.
Must be they've done this kind of thing before.
   

ExxonMobil Corp. collected a record $45 billion in profits last year on petroleum sales of almost half a trillion dollars.

Exxon's profit statement here.

That's enough to bail out a couple of megabanks -- or start one. It's better than the $40 billion Exxon earned in 2007.

But falling oil prices trimmed fourth-quarter profits to $8 billion, from $12 billion a year earlier. Poor Exxon!  

At least they're still finding oil.

Doug Oliver, spokesman for Mayor Nutter, says it's TracFone's fault that Philadelphia won't let it give out federally-subsidized free cell phones in the city: (See previous PhillyDeals item.)

"We support the idea of giving lower-income Philadelphians better access to emergency services by providing free cell phones," Oliver wrote.

"However, TracFone has been unwilling to rigorously test their phones' ability to access emergency services regardless of their activation status as required by the FCC to be eligible to receive a government subsidy.

"Without that reassurance, it would be irresponsible for the City to certify these phones' ability to access emergency services. Our first responsibility is to the safety of Philadelphians. They deserve phones that can reliably reach 911 in case of emergency and TracFone has not yet proven to us that their phones can do so."

And no, Philadelphia doesn't care that TracFone is good enough for New York, Atlanta or Pittsburgh. We want to test them here.

Off the record, another city official says TracFone has lately relented and allowed the city to test its phones. Which makes it a little wierd that TracFone took this moment to take the fight public. But we're glad they did. We hate it when this stuff happens in the dark.

I didn't know: TracFone is an arm of Mexico phone monopolist Carlos Slim-Helu's investment empire. He's also a big shareholder in the New York Times, among other companies... Telecom and attempted monopoly are kind of a natural, unhealthy combination. We're glad there's mobile-phone competition, in this country, at least..

Pay-as-you-go mobile-phone vendor TracFone Wireless Inc., Miami, says Philadelphia and Bucks County have turned down its attempt to give free, government-subsidized mobile phones to poor people.

TracFone says its SafeLink wireless service is subsidized by a federal program that, in Pennsylvania, pays phone companies $8.25 per low-income customer per month, in hopes of expanding access to 911 emergency services and other basic needs. Some carriers use the program to offer cut-rate service to qualified callers; TracFone offers a free phone, plus 42 minutes of free use each month, in hopes they'll buy additional minutes.

To participate, the phone has to be approved by local 911 emergency phone service coordinators in each market, TracFone lobbyist Jose Fuentes told me. He says Florida, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, Atlanta, New York City, and Allegheney, Chester and Montgomery Counties, among other places, have approved SafeLink. But Philadelphia and Bucks turned it down, as did the counties including Allentown, Bethlehem and Reading. Delaware County is testing the phones, Fuentes added.

In Philadelphia, "they told us they were concerned they'd get sued. Which is ridiculous. They have... other cell phone carriers that have this program," Fuentes told me. Philadelphia 911 director Frank Punzo and his Bucks County counterpart, Peter Ference, weren't available when I called them to get the governments' side.

GSI Commerce, King of Prussia, and Innotrac, Atlanta, which fill orders for online retailers, cancelled their October merger agreement today without giving a reason (and no break-up fee.) The trouble was clear to analysts:

"The termination is based on GSI trading below" the target price of $11.12 a share in January, wrote Janney Montgomery Scott LLC analyst Shawn C. Milne in a report. That's a "positive event given the current environment" and the need to "preserve capital."

Killing the deal "improves liquidity... We remain cautious on the 2009 outlook given the macroeconomic backdrop," wrote Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP analysts Marianne Wolk and Malindi Davies. GCI itself "is an attractive acquisition candidate at these levels," they added.

GSI fills orders for Toys R Us, Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. and the NFL, among others. Innotrac clients include Target Corp., North Face, Kay Jewelers and NBC. The combined company would have had 4,000 workers (or nearly 10,000 in the Christmas rush) and rivaled Amazon.com as an online shipping-and-call center, ceo Michael Rubin said when he announced the deal last fall.