TOPWRAP 4-World faces slowdown in 2009, hopes pinned on bailouts
* U.S. confidence plunges, home prices down 18 pct
* U.S. auto and home lender GMAC expands lending
* Global growth seen very weak next year - ECB's Hurley
* Euro zone lending stagnates, pressure for rate cut
* Japan is said to mull $110 billion plan to buy bad loans (For stories on the financial crisis, click on [nCRISIS]
NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Another day, another batch of warnings and data indicating the world will enter 2009 in the throes of a sharp economic slowdown, with governments scrambling to find ways to boost lending and spur growth.
Oil and gold prices dipped on Tuesday, pressured by the gloomy global economic outlook which outweighed tension in the Middle East due to Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip. [O/R]
Tuesday brought more dismal economic news in the United States, with single-family home prices down 18 percent in October from a year earlier and consumer confidence plunging to a record low due to severe job cuts. [ID:nN30339924]
U.S. retailers are also suffering. The International Council of Shopping Centers said the U.S. holiday shopping season was the worst since at least 1970 due to the recession, heavy discounting and harsh winter weather. [ID:nN30335648]
"Really at this point we are not going to be seeing anything fundamentally positive from the U.S. for the time being," said Michael Wolfolk, senior currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon in New York.
But U.S. stock markets found some cause for cheer in news that the government expanded its bailout of the auto industry, pumping $5 billion into General Motors' (GM.N) auto and mortgage financing arm GMAC. [ID:nN29320920]
GMAC and its parent GM, the biggest U.S. automaker, announced programs to make it easier for car and truck buyers to get financing, a day after the U.S. government said it was pumping $5 billion into GMAC and lending an additional $1 billion to GM to help it buy shares in GMAC. [ID:nN30334866]
The U.S. government agreed on Dec. 19 to rescue GM and Chrysler LLC with up to $17.4 billion in loans to stave off a collapse that would have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in an economy already deep in recession.
2009 GROWTH SEEN VERY WEAK
A senior European banker warned global economic growth will be very weak next year and new data showed loans to companies and households in the euro zone stagnated, raising new concerns about the extent of the credit crunch. Continued...
