Daily News Channel
Now that the bank stress tests are completed, is it time to plan another round? The government’s bank exams, the results of which were released last Thursday, seem to have calmed the market and paved the way for the nation’s largest financial firms to raise tens of billion of dollars. As a result, a number of academics and policy watchers are warming to the idea of making the stress tests permanent.
From his earliest days as Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner’s biggest challenge has been restoring confidence in America’s fragile banks without taking the politically costly step of asking Congress for more money. To judge by the results of the government-run stress tests released Thursday afternoon, Geithner has somehow pulled it off — at least for now. Not that three months of supervisory scrutiny of the country’s top 19 banks hasn’t produced some grim news.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking via satellite to a bank conference sponsored by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, said on Thursday morning that the stress tests ‘will allow, I hope, for greater confidence in the banks.’ But even though the stress tests are over, the banks and their investors are not out of the woods.
A popular president taking on a reviled industry should get what he wants, in principle, especially when he’s working with a sympathetic Congress. But it’s not so clear Barack Obama will be able to deliver on his promises of clamping down on credit card abuses, thanks to the banking industry’s experienced Washington lobbyists and their plans to limit proposed restrictions on their business.
The last time we realized the financial system had sold us out—this was way back in 2001/2002—one of the results was a half-a-billion-dollar settlement with Wall Street’s stock analysts. As you might recall, investment banks had a bad habit of issuing overly rosy opinions of companies, particularly the ones the banks were courting for other sorts of business. Twelve companies, including Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, J.P
Is your bank broke? Probably not.
Donald Trump visited "Larry King Live" on Wednesday night to tout his new book, "Think Like a Champion." In a wide-ranging interview, Trump shared his thoughts on how to prosper in this economy, Bernie Madoff, how President Obama is doing, taxes and his daughter’s love life. The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity: Larry King: Why this book Donald Trump: A lot of people wanted me to do a book right now about these troubled times that we’re all in
Social networking Web sites are set to play a crucial role in protests ahead of next week’s G20 meeting of world leaders in London as demonstration organizers and police use Twitter and Facebook as key sources of real-time information and intelligence. Metropolitan Police leaders have warned that the city faces an “unprecedented” wave of protest in the run-up to Thursday’s summit talks on the state of the global economy and are set to deploy huge numbers of officers to maintain public order.
There’s an uproar about whether the government should let AIG fail, a debate re-energized by the latest revelation of bonus payments going to AIG’s executives. In fact, there’s a good case to be made that AIG should fail, and it has nothing to do with bonuses. The rescue of AIG is warping the banking system and unnecessarily extending the credit crisis.
Supermodel and television host Tyra Banks said Sunday she’s "concerned" about Saturday’s melee at an "America’s Next Top Model" audition at a New York hotel, but said she didn’t know what caused the disturbance. “We are concerned by the events that occurred Saturday afternoon in the vicinity of the New York City casting call for the next cycle of ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ ” Banks, who hosts and produces the show, said in a joint statement with executive producer Ken Mok. “At this time, we still don’t know all the details of what happened or what triggered the incident