From Reuters….

To battle sliding demand in the United States, Deutsche Post now planned to shut down its domestic U.S. express business and focus on international shipping there. It would spend $3.9 billion on restructuring, $1.9 billion more than previously planned.

The U.S. DHL unit’s full-year EBIT loss would reach $1.5 billion this year, more than the $1.3 billion previously expected.

Europe’s biggest mail and express delivery company already last month cut its full-year profit outlook for this and next year, citing slowing global economic growth, which hit especially its U.S. business.

This only has meaning for some of us. Most of us only use Fed Ex or UPS. But for those of us who were forced into using DHL for one reason or another, this is good news. They did not treat their customers well.

Once you start bailing out business how do you stop? Once they are used to cheap money how do you teach them to hustle? AIG is all over the news again. It is getting another bail out. From Bloomberg….

The U.S. Treasury will buy $40 billion in American International Group Inc. preferred shares, and the Federal Reserve will open two new emergency loan units to finance the company’s securities, the government said today.

The new terms of the government’s assistance are less costly than the Fed’s first loan to AIG on Sept. 16, a statement released in Washington said. The New York Fed gave the original loan to prevent widespread default against AIG creditors in the same week that Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed.

Naked Capitalism expresses the rage of many.

From Marco Man….

Strangely, there appears to be quite a difference in opinion of how significant the package actually is. A number of the measures had been previously announced; still others represent the allocation funds that would have been spent anyways. Moreover, only a minority of the funds are coming from the central government, so the source of the remainder of the money is a trifle opaque.

They don’t really know what to do over there yet. You will know when they are seriously scared when they start selling treasuries.

Will it ever get to that point? Brad Setser makes the point that the bigger the boom the bigger the bust. And China had a big boom.

From The Wall Street Journal…

China’s government announced a two-year stimulus exceeding a half-trillion dollars to offset the impact of slowing global growth and unlock the spending power of its vast population.

Premier Wen Jiabao’s cabinet set plans for 4 trillion yuan, or $586 billion, in spending and stimulus measures through the end of 2010 aimed specifically to target people’s livelihood, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday night.

It was unclear how much the plan, which will target 10 areas from rural infrastructure to low-cost housing, represents new spending and how quickly it can stimulate domestic demand.

The question is, will they fund this by selling treasuries? Or will they soak up money that would have otherwise gone to private capital investment.