Wildcat strikes at power stations spread across the country yesterday as workers threatened to "unleash a monster" and potentially threaten electricity supplies.

The week-long clash between the French oil giant and its workers escalated yesterday when the company announced it was sacking 647 people who had taken unofficial action over job losses. "The lights will go out," said one worker at the Lindsey oil refinery, where unofficial action has led to a dozen sympathetic strikes.

Emergency talks at the terminal in North Lincolnshire collapsed last night with the unions accusing management of "bullying and intimidation". Total insisted it could not negotiate while it was faced with an illegal dispute.

Many of the sacked staff at the site, which was the scene of a bitter strike over the employment of foreign workers in February, heard the news through the media before letters from management arrived informing them that they had until Monday to reapply for their jobs.

Allen Stanford, the flamboyant Texan billionaire who promised to bankroll English cricket, was in custody last night after prosecutors said his offshore banking business was a massive fraud.

In US criminal charges that go far beyond the accusations already levelled against him in a civil case, Mr Stanford is accused of being in cahoots with the Antiguan authorities by bribing the Caribbean island's chief regulator to help hush up his $7.2bn (£4.3bn) pyramid scheme when the authorities began to close in. The depth of the apparent conspiracy and the number of his alleged crimes emerged only after his long-time business partner and former college room-mate turned against him, striking a co-operation agreement with the FBI.

There's an interesting counterpoint between Christina Romer's new piece in the Economist on the lessons of 1937 and the poll results, which are alarming some commentators, showing that a majority of Americans give deficit reduction a higher priority than rescuing the economy.

First of all, Ms. Romer's point -- that a premature return to orthodoxy can be deadly in this kind of crisis -- is one I might have made myself. In fact, I just did.

I also liked her admission that

As someone who has written somewhat critically of the short-sightedness of policymakers in the late 1930s, I feel new humility. I can see that the pressures they were under were probably enormous.

My version of that admission is the statement that we owe the Japanese an apology: their stop-go policies in the 90s, the reluctance to reform banking, are a lot easier to understand now.

The prospects for the aviation industry are bleak, but executives are trying to put a positive spin on the situation. At the Paris Air Show, champagne and fighter jets are intended to distract attention from the lack of orders.

The start of the Paris Air Show was as grim as the situation for the aviation sector: gray skies with persistent rain, combined with pessimistic forecasts for aircraft production and passenger numbers.

snip

It is not only a perceived downturn but a tangible crisis -- as a glance at industry figures confirms. After an estimated global loss of $10.4 billion (€7.5 billion) in 2008, the International Air Transport Association expects airlines to make a loss of $9 billion in 2009. And the reality could be even worse: The pessimistic scenario doesn't take into account the consequences of a possible global swine flu pandemic, a new rise in fuel prices or a possible CO2 tax.

Andy Xie, writing for Cajing, questions the durability of China's recovery. He argues that much of the upsurge in lending, which was one of the developments that cheered commentators, is fueling asset speculation, in this case in commodities, Reports this spring has suggested that as much as a third of the new lending was going into the stock market.

Observers have argued that China is stockpiling commodities as a diversification strategy., Xie adds an important tidbit to this equation, that banks are lending against commodities, using mortgage-like structures, and argues that the current price levels of commodities are a function of easy credit, not fundamentals.

Freepress is running a petition:

Time Warner Cable is trying to restrict Internet use by shamelessly overcharging people who use the Web every day. Now other phone and cable giants like Comcast and AT&T are following suit -- weighing schemes to hike prices, shut down the free-flowing Web and keep user innovation in check.

The Internet is an engine of economic growth, civic engagement and free speech. To prosper in the 21st century, we need to encourage more Internet use, not less. The Broadband Internet Fairness Act would make price-gouging plans illegal and require the big phone and cable companies to disclose their schemes to the Federal Trade Commission.

This bill is our bill. By signing this letter, you're telling your representative to support the Broadband Internet Fairness Act today.