Tuesday, May 13th
Last update09:16:13 PM GMT
Economic Glance
Think you could borrow money from a bank without saying what you were going to do with it? Well, apparently when banks borrow from you they don't feel the same need to say how the money is spent.Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.
Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.
Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Mr. Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, “faced with the prospect of a global meltdown” with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.
After what is likely to be the last in a long series of interest rate cuts Tuesday, the Federal Reserve is expected to continue its new, perhaps more effective monetary strategy: printing lots of money.
TVNL Comment: The Fed: Making your money worthless! We should simply stop accepting dollars and use a barter system. The Liberty Dollar was a good idea and we should look into using them.
Some of the world's biggest banks have revealed they are victims of an alleged fraud which has lost $50bn (£33bn).
Bernard Madoff, who was arrested on Thursday, has been charged with fraud in what is being described as one of the biggest-ever such cases.
Among the banks that have been hit are Britain's HSBC and RBS, Spain's Santander and France's BNP Paribas.
Other victims include film director Stephen Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation charity.
One of the City's best-known fund managers has criticised US regulators for not detecting the alleged fraud.
Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.
But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision.
Regulators on Friday closed Haven Trust Bank in Georgia and Sanderson State Bank in Texas, bringing to 25 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.
The 25 U.S. bank failures so far this year compare with three for all of 2007 and are far more than in the previous five years combined. It's expected that many more banks won't survive the next year of economic turmoil. The pressures of tumbling home prices, rising foreclosures and tighter credit have been battering financial firms nationwide.
TVNL Comment: The privately owned Federal Reserve is taking back all their money. They are going to proceed with their plan of owning everything in this nation.
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