FINANCIAL News, Money, Banks, Economic and Financial Crisis, Oct 21, 2011

Merkel rebuffs Sarkozy on euro zone solution Reuters By Alexandra Hudson and Luke Baker BRUSSELS/BERLIN, Oct 21 (Reuters) - France's push to use more European Central Bank money to fight the euro zone debt crisis ran into strong resistance from Germany and other EU partners on Friday, leaving Paris ... See all stories on this topic »

Eurozone debt crisis: America fails to grasp urgency of Brussels summit The Guardian A second global financial crisis, #gfc2 (it already has its own Twitter hashtag!), would not just sink the American economy further into the mire, of course. It would pitchpole the presidential election, forcing Obama to shoulder even more economic ... See all stories on this topic » The Guardian

Financial watchdog says inflation could lead to misselling MindfulMoney He wants the new Bank of England committee - the Financial Policy Committee - to have the ability to vary bank capital on a countercyclical basis. That means that when the economy is doing well, the regulator could require banks to hold more capital to ... See all stories on this topic »

IMF Executive Board Concludes 2011 Article IV Consultation with Indonesia International Monetary Fund On October 7, 2011, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Indonesia. 1 Continuing the impressive performance during the global financial crisis, Indonesia's economy expanded 6.1 percent ... See all stories on this topic »

Europe struggles over bailout fund Albany Times Union (Thomas Lohnes / dapd) German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, center, speaks with from left, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, and Finnish Finance Minister... See all stories on this topic »

Struggling French Banks Fought to Avoid Oversight Wall Street Journal "We focus on intrusive controls and rigorous risk management," a spokeswoman for the French central bank said. The French banks and regulators began their resistance to new rules almost immediately once the global financial crisis kicked into gear in ... See all stories on this topic » Wall Street Journal

Troika headmasters confirm their model pupil is getting a good report Irish Times This mantra was echoed during a joint briefing earlier in the day by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin. The accentuation of the positive is understandable – everyone needs to make the bailout work. ... See all stories on this topic » Irish Times

APNewsBreak: Greek 2nd rescue deal seen not enough BusinessWeek But even with those terms, Greece's debts would spiral to above 180 percent ofeconomic output next year, European officials have said. To give Greece more relief, Germany and other rich countries want banks and other financial institutions to take ... See all stories on this topic »

Asia still the engine of world growth Jakarta Post First is our commitment. We have been extraordinarily committed as abank to investing. Right at the beginning of our investment was the globalfinancial crisis in 2008, but we didn't back off. That gave a very good signal to the market. ... See all stories on this topic » Jakarta Post

Japan Approves Reconstruction Package, Strong Yen Steps Wall Street Journal Japan may now consider further support for Europe inevitable, as the crisis clouds the outlook for global economic growth and keeps the safe-haven yen near record highs due to deep unease in global financial markets. "It is probably too hard for us not ... See all stories on this topic »

One way to profit from the debt crisis — save more money Financial Post (blog) How can investors profit from a debt crisis? Short selling? Gold? Managed futures? There is a solution that is simpler than these, although it's sure to garner a lot of criticism from the mainstream political and financial community. ... See all stories on this topic »

European, Polish financial officials express confidence in euro despite ... Newser By VANESSA GERA | AP | 5 minutes ago in Money The euro has proven "a great success" despite the debt problems gripping some countries that use it, the outgoing head of the European Central Bank said Friday. A top Polish financial official, meanwhile, ... See all stories on this topic »

US Student Debt Impact Likened to Subprime Crisis Beyond Chron Alberto Gutierrez, a 38-year-old doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, has had to borrow more money and take on a part-time job to cover his expenses, including a $3000 monthly mortgage payment. He receives some financial aid, ... See all stories on this topic » Beyond Chron

Dangerous German Export Machine Needs Reverse Gear Wall Street Journal By ALEN MATTICH Germans need to stop saving and start spending, or the rollingfinancial crisis that kicked off in 2008 will only get worse. That, in a nutshell, was Bankof England Governor Mervyn King's message in a speech he made earlier this week, ... See all stories on this topic »

ČNB: EU move to prevent crisis via regulation 'an illusion' Czech Position Central banks are now expressing their views on fiscal policies more, and they now have responsibilities which under normal circumstances Singer says the main lesson of the financial crisis for central bankers is that in times of economic and financial ... See all stories on this topic » Czech Position

Bank of England unanimous on stimulus policy Las Vegas Sun AP Bank of England rate-setters voted unanimously this month to inject more moneyinto the struggling British economy, marking a sharp turnaround in sentiment. Minutes of the October meeting released Wednesday showed that all nine members of the ... See all stories on this topic »

President of Iceland: Our Clean Energy Economy Helped Us Survive aFinancial ... Treehugger And that has led to post-crisis investment that has helped Iceland weather -- and begin to emerge from -- its recession. "If you have built up a clean energy economy, it will help you get out of financial crises in the future," Grimsson said. ... See all stories on this topic » Treehugger

Crowning a banking champ Chicago Tribune For help, we talked to Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com; Tony Giorgianni, associate money editor at Consumer Reports; Mike Schenk, vice president of economics and statistics at Credit Union National Association; ... See all stories on this topic »

UBS, Commercial Bank, Microsoft, Wal-Mart in Court News BusinessWeek Shabudin and Yu were the first senior bank officials charged with fraud at a financialinstitution that got money from the government's Trouble Assets Relief Program, known as TARP. The program was meant to shore up financial institutions hit with ... See all stories on this topic »

Divest From Big Banks Now! Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies As I read through them, I remembered that Iceland—which suffered a bank meltdown beginning in 2008—dealt with its financial crises by nationalizing all the banks. Many other European nations are currently nationalizing or are considering ... See all stories on this topic »

October 21, 2011: Some News That Matters Business Insider Officials from the IMF and World Bank visited Libya earlier this month to conduct a fact-finding mission on the economy and public financialmanagement issues, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters. “Follow-up missions are planned to undertake a ... See all stories on this topic » Business Insider

Fed Is Poised for More Easing Wall Street Journal From 2009 through March 2010, the Fed purchased $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities in a program that Mr. Bernanke believes played an important role in healing distressed financial markets during the crisis. The Fed halted the program as ... See all stories on this topic »

China to allow local bond sales BBC News You just have to look at the projected growth rates of China to realise that” A large part of these loans was extended by government-owned and controlled banks to local authorities during the global financial crisis in a bid to sustain growth. ... See all stories on this topic » BBC News

Central bankers must update outdated analytical toolkit Financial Times The “mainstream analytical frameworks at policymakers' disposal” are inadequate, Borio points out, to explain how finance and the real economy interact. And since centralbanks are still trying to boost the economy by chasing ultra low interest rates ... See all stories on this topic »

Markets to Ride Rollercoaster All the Way to EU Summit(s) CNBC.com The anti-crisis package that leaders are likely to propose will have four broad elements: bank recapitalization, leveraging the EFSF, further restructuring of Greek sovereign debt [cnbc explains] , and new economicgovernance, according to Brzeski. ... See all stories on this topic » CNBC.com

Government borrowing figures show deficit reduction target on course MyFinances.co.uk An investigation by the Financial Times reveals that there is less spare capacity in the economy than previously estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility putting at jeopardy plans to clear the deficit during this parliament. ... See all stories on this topic » MyFinances.co.uk

Maybe markets need more principles and less regulation Reuters Unfortunately, these principles have been violated very badly during and after the great financial crisis. Let me list a few that I think are good. I'm sure there are more, but still less than the number of regulations. If you want the benefits of risk ... See all stories on this topic » Reuters

Bain Buys Japanese Restaurant Chain Skylark Wall Street Journal The deal would be one of the largest acquisitions in Japan by a foreign investment firm since the global financial crisis in 2008. Mr. Gross-Loh believes that this is the kind of purchase that could help boost the relatively small and flagging volume ... See all stories on this topic »

Deals of the Day: PE Firms Courting Alibaba For Yahoo Bid Wall Street Journal (blog) [WSJ] Money shuffle: An examination of the financial relationship between Spanishbanking giant Banco Santander and its British unit, Santander UK, shows that billions of euros have moved between the parent and its subsidiary in recent years. ... See all stories on this topic »

Papandreou Prevails in Greek Austerity Vote as One Dies BusinessWeek For more on Europe's debt crisis, see EXT4 .) Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou won a parliamentary vote on a new round of austerity designed to secure more financial aid, risking further unrest that left one person dead ... See all stories on this topic »

A Tale of Three (Ohio) Banks Wall Street Journal All three struggled to shine before the financial crisis because banking in the Rust Belt seemed long a disadvantage to the hot South and fast growing West. Now manufacturing is one bright spot where bankers see loan demand. But the chief executives of ... See all stories on this topic »

Europe pays for lost character Asia Times Online A financial institution that would have to hold the mortgage on its books would have done due diligence to see if the borrower had something a bit more than a pulse. As to global companies, if the "too big to fail" banks had broken up, ... See all stories on this topic »

First Niagara Financial CEO Discusses Q3 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript Seeking Alpha Since the beginning of the financial crisis, we've been very adept at putting off under some tough conditions. You are sure that we will maintain our long-term offensive focus. We will continue to drive earnings growth. Given our firm belief is that ... See all stories on this topic »

What If We Paid Off The Debt? The Secret Government Report NPR (blog) The US Treasury bond is a pillar of the global economy. Banks buy hundreds of billions of dollars' worth, because they're a safe place to park money. Mortgage rates are tied to the interest rate on US treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve — our central ... See all stories on this topic »

Tanzania moves to rescue falling shilling Coastweek Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Mustafa Mkulo has called a crisis meeting to find ways of taming the rising inflation rate, according to the Daily News published here on Tuesday. With the freefalling shilling, unreliable electricity supply and ... See all stories on this topic »

Syria Spent $3 Billion on Pound Defense Since Revolt The Daily Star The US also targeted the Commercial Bank of Syria and a subsidiary, banned the import of Syrian petroleum products, and cut Syria's access to the US financial system. Mayaleh dismissed the possibility that the Syrian economy may collapse as the ... See all stories on this topic » The Daily Star

Humor Column: The Urban Erma by Leighann Lord: Financial Fairy Tales | Stage ... Stage Time Magazine You can't leave the doors unlocked after 6pm with money piled up in the lobby for the taking; but a little help and understanding from the authorities would be nice. It's been a really bad week overall in the financial world. The government stepped in ... See all stories on this topic »

PRESS DIGEST - Wall Street Journal - Oct 21 Reuters Financial-services industry hiring at the big Master of Business Administration programs hit a post financial-crisis high this year. Employers such as banks, hedge funds, investment managers, private equity and venture capital firms hired 39 percent of... See all stories on this topic »

Revisiting The European Crisis: Why The Lessons Of '92-'93 Don't Apply Seeking Alpha In retrospect, this was far from the definitive solution to the problems of financial andeconomic cohabitation in Europe. While exchange rate volatility disappeared forever from the list of policy concerns in Europe, fiscal spillovers and ... See all stories on this topic »

Capital One Financial's CEO Discusses Q3 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript Seeking Alpha Credit improvements in our Card and Auto Finance businesses have outpaced the modest and fragile economic recovery. Recent economic headlines have been full of bad news with 0 job growth in August, the debt ceiling crisis and downgrade of the US credit ... See all stories on this topic »

Mad at debit-card fees? Blame Congress Philadelphia Inquirer These fees are one way that banks make money. And they had nothing to do with thecrisis that triggered the financial reform measure. So why did Congress include these price caps? Because Durbin and other supporters of the measure were aiming to help ... See all stories on this topic »

Sleight of hand: BofA moves dodgy Merrill derivatives to bank New York Post For weeks, BofA CEO Brian Moynihan has been dogged about the health of one of the nation's largest banking franchises and its massive exposures to toxic debt after its shotgun mergers with Merrill and Countrywide Financial during the credit crisis ... See all stories on this topic » New York Post

Europe rejects U.S. approach to financial crisis, stirring doubts about ... PARIS — European officials working to address the region's financial crisis have ...session with finance ministers from the Group of 20 major economic powers. ... the swift infusion of public capital into banks that U.S. and IMF officials say could be ... for saving the financial system and that all the banks had to take the money, ... www.washingtonpost.com/.../gIQACZQVmL_story.html

IMF Survey: G-20 Reaffirms Commitment to Resolve Crisis Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Twenty (G-20) industrialized and ... IMFSurvey Magazine: In the News ... People walk near the French Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Industry in Bercy, France. ... taking concrete steps to build a more stable and resilient international monetary system both to ... www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/.../NEW101511A.htm

U.S. rejects plan to strengthen IMF in euro zone crisis | Reuters PARIS (Reuters) - Proposals to double the size of the IMF as part of a broader ... People walk near the French Economy, Finance and Industry Ministry at Bercy ... A communique and round of closing news conferences are expected around 11 ... The Franco-German crisis plan is likely to ask banks to accept bigger losses on ... www.reuters.com/article/.../us-g-idUSTRE79C74G20111014

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