…auto sales posted their biggest drop in more than two years…General Motors Corp said it would cut labor costs, sell assets and borrow at least $2 billion to bolster finances in the face of plummeting sales. The U.S. Labor Department said producer prices over the last 12 months jumped 9.2 percent, the biggest increase since a 10.4 percent gain in June 1981 when the United States was last mired in a stagflationary period of low growth and high inflation. A regional manufacturing survey showed factory activity in New York contracted for the fifth time in six months and data in the report suggested producers were passing on higher prices to consumers, which could add further fuel to inflation. More
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