As German leaders and bankers worked feverishly to rescue a lender considered too big to fail, the government announced Sunday that it would guarantee all private savings accounts in Germany - worth about €500 billion - in an effort to reinforce increasingly shaky confidence in the financial system.
Officials in Berlin were frantically trying to salvage a €35 billion, or $48 billion, bailout devised just a week ago for Hypo Real Estate, a major German property lender based in Munich and member of the benchmark stock index, after commercial banks withdrew their support, fearing greater losses.
Much of the weekend activity was undertaken with a view toward having solutions in place by the time financial markets opened Monday in Asia, a trigger point that officials around the world have come to view warily.
With memories of how the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers put the crisis into high gear three weeks ago, officials fear letting investors wake up to a festering problem. That could easily provoke new losses in stock markets and test the limits of tight credit markets, the core of the crisis.
Worried that the continued turmoil at Hypo Real Estate would lead to a depositors’ panic at other German banks, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück made a rare Sunday appearance before television cameras in Berlin on the steps of the Chancellery to assure a jittery public about the safety of their savings.
The EU is trying to shut down Ireland from doing the same thing - relying upon pettifoggery regulations they say the Irish are violating.
Of course, they dare not try to smack down Germany - the strongest industrial engine in the whole EU - or they might just pull back a stub.
It’s time once again for Joe Six Pack and The Soccer Moms — No Agenda from the Gitmo Nation is on the air. “She had me from hello” says Adam, in reference to Sarah Palin in the VP debate. John thinks Joe Biden kicked some serious butt. This with a moderator about to release a pro-Obama book.
John is enamored with CNN’s graphic on screen of approval ratings - men vs. women in Ohio. Should we take the vote away from women? John and Adam discuss even the small things, like the set, Palin and Biden’s dress and look, the sound, clock tricks, even mannerisms and innuendos. Adam decides this may be the greatest reality show ever on TV.
John wonders if this debate actually saved the McCain campaign. Did the media actually screw up so big (Katie Couric) that the public is clued in? Adam points out that TV is slipping, we may no longer pick our leaders like we pick our washing powder.
John relates his notes on approval ratings based on topics: mavericks, corruption and greed, finanacial crises, theocracy, hockey moms, parenting, Iraq and more. Adam has interesting comments about each, including Biden’s reputation as an actor for just this type of speech. Did Palin miss an opportunity here?
Wisconsin authorities say they’ve broken up a large-scale prescription drug ring that at one time allegedly was operated by a county jail inmate.
The group would allegedly use information gathered from trash bins outside pharmacies to forge prescriptions, purchase such drugs as the addictive painkiller oxycodone and distribute them in Milwaukee and elsewhere in Wisconsin.
Jailed on felony charges are Micah Reno, 30, of Franklin, Wis., and James Leipski, 42, of Milwaukee. Authorities said Reno, identified as the ringleader, continued running the operation even while serving time in the Milwaukee County House of Correction on a cocaine possession charge from May 2007 through January, the newspaper said.
It’s critical to the mental health of prison inmates that they have secure communications with the outside world. Or so I’m told.
Predictions that Russia will again become powerful, rich and influential ignore some simply devastating problems at home that block any march to power. Sure, Russia’s army could take tiny Georgia. But Putin’s military is still in tatters, armed with rusting weaponry and staffed with indifferent recruits. Meanwhile, a declining population is robbing the military of a new generation of soldiers. Russia’s economy is almost totally dependent on the price of oil. And, worst of all, it’s facing a public health crisis that verges on the catastrophic.
Citigroup announced late Saturday that it had persuaded a New York judge to temporarily block Wells Fargo from acquiring Wachovia, firing the first shot in what could be a prolonged legal battle.
Citigroup has accused Wells Fargo of wrecking its plan to acquire Wachovia’s banking operations for $2.2 billion, or $1 a share, in a deal arranged by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Four days after that deal was struck, it fell apart when Wachovia agreed to Wells Fargo’s offer to pay seven times as much for the entire company.
The underlying battle is over which company will emerge from the economic crisis in a stronger position among a smaller number of financial giants. Citigroup contends that the deal with Wells Fargo violates an agreement that prohibited Wachovia from having any sale or merger discussions with anyone other than Citigroup until Oct. 6.
The order issued by a judge on Saturday extends the term of that agreement until further court action, Citigroup said. A person briefed on the situation said that Citigroup was seeking $60 billion in damages from Wells Fargo for interfering with the initial transaction.
Efforts to reach a Wells Fargo representative late Saturday night were unsuccessful. Christy Phillips-Brown, a Wachovia spokeswoman, said the bank “believes its agreement with Wells is proper, valid, and is in the best interest of shareholders, employees and American taxpayers.”
In case you’ve been asleep for the past week, these are kind of the greedy thugs the Americans are bailing out with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.
A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. Not only that, but the best solution for the country will be the installation of an “acceptable dictator.”
“The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust,” Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British envoy is quoted by Jean-François Fitou, the author of the cable, .
The two-page cable - which was sent to the Élysée Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which printed excerpts in its Wednesday edition - said that the NATO-led military presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.
“The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution,” Cowper-Coles was quoted as saying. “Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.”
Europe’s leading telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom, has admitted that it has lost confidential data belonging to 17 million T-mobile clients. The theft, in 2006, which is now subject to a judicial inquiry, involved telephone numbers, dates of birth, addresses and email addresses, subsidiary T-Mobile said in a statement.
Spokesman Frank Domagala said that bank details were not attached, and that “according to our information, even though these details have been put up for sale on the black market, there has not been a buyer.”
The claim was reportedly contained in court papers obtained by a celebrity website following Ms Stone’s unsuccessful custody battle with her former husband Phil Bronstein. The document portrayed the 50-year-old star of the Basic Instinct films as an alarmist parent who had become convinced that Roan, whom the couple adopted, suffered from a spinal condition despite there being “no evidence” to back up her belief.
Ms Stone separated from Mr Bronstein, a newspaper editor, five years ago and the couple later divorced quietly. In one highly critical passage the judge questions Ms Stone’s commitment to the boy remarking: “Mother appears to overreact to many medical issues involving Roan.” Despite his young age, Ms Stone’s alleged over-reactions were “painfully real” to the boy, the judge remarked.
She went on: “Another example of an overreaction is that Mother suggested that Roan should have Botox injections in his feet to resolve a problem he had with foot odour. “As Father appropriately noted, the simple and common sense approach of making sure Roan wore socks with his shoes and used foot deodorant corrected the odour problem without the need for any invasive procedure on this young child.”
Before marrying the Hollywood star he was best known as the reporter who first documented the former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos’s vast collection of shoes after the collapse of her husband President Ferdinand Marcos’s regime in 1986. During the couple’s marriage Ms Stone once arranged for him to visit a rare 7ft komodo dragon at the Los Angeles zoo as a Father’s Day surprise. But the treat ended in disaster with Mr Bronstein being rushed to hospital after being bitten in the foot by the reptile.
For supporters of the Bush administration’s $700-billion Wall Street bailout, it stands as a key selling point: a provision that limits pay packages for the heads of companies helped by the taxpayer-funded rescue program. There’s just one problem: It would do little to cap executive pay or rein in the enormous retirement packages — the golden parachutes — that have come to symbolize corporate excess.
Not only is the compensation provision vague, it is punched full of loopholes and leaves many issues of executive pay for the White House to decide later. Legal and political experts say the bill will do almost nothing to limit CEO compensation — even for companies that benefit handsomely from the taxpayers’ generosity.
All eyes were on the House Friday when it passed the Senate-passed bill, by a vote of 263-171. The legislation was then quickly sent to President George W. Bush, who signed it.
Much has been made of the changes to that proposal — including $150 billion in tax benefits to businesses and families. Yet aside from one provision raising the upper limit on federal deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000, nothing substantial has changed within the financial rescue plan that the House rejected.
Keeping an eye on the thieves in Congress is a full-time job. One that should be ruled by voters who - often enough - don’t take the time to find out what it is the clown they elected really is doing in DC.
There are a few NGO’s that work their butts off trying to keep track of the tomfoolery. Thing is - this isn’t what government is supposed to be about. Strict, realistic laws limiting lobbying, conflict-of-interest, and a justice department and Supreme Court that aren’t structured according to ideology might be qualitative additions to the list of government reforms needed.
The American people continue to be viewed more positively than their country, with majorities in 14 of 23 countries having a favorable opinion of Americans, including at least 70% of those surveyed by Pew in South Korea, Lebanon, Poland and Britain. By comparison, only eight countries have a favorable opinion of the United States. Significant gaps between favorability for Americans and the U.S. exist, especially in Western Europe. For example, while only 31% of Germans have a positive view of the U.S., 55% have a favorable opinion of Americans. Similarly, just 42% in France take a positive view of the U.S., but nearly two-thirds (64%) see the American people in a favorable light. In the Latin American and African countries in the survey, however, ratings for Americans and the U.S. tend to track each other very closely.
block Wells Fargo from acquiring Wachovia, firing the first shot in what could be a prolonged legal battle.
