financial crisis

Stories 61 - 80 | << Prev   Next >>

What Occupy Wall Street Should Demand
 What Occupy Wall Street 
 Should Demand 
NICHOLAS KRISTOF

What Occupy Wall Street Should Demand

Movement needs clear demands to fix financial system

(Newser) - The biggest problem with the Occupy Wall Street movement is its demands: "It doesn’t really have any," writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times . While he's not anti-market like many of the protesters, Kristof does think America's financial institutions have grown out of control—...

Germany OKs Expanded Bailout
 Germany OKs Expanded Bailout 

Germany OKs Expanded Bailout

Merkel gets her win; move designed to shore up euro zone

(Newser) - German lawmakers have cleared the way for an expansion of the size and powers of the euro zone bailout fund, in a major step toward tackling the bloc's sprawling sovereign debt crisis. A clear majority of lawmakers in Germany's lower house of parliament voted today in favor of...

George Soros: Double-Dip Recession Is Here

Rejection of stimulus a big mistake: investor

(Newser) - Worry no longer about an impending double-dip recession—it’s already here, says George Soros. “I think we are in it already,” the billionaire investor told CNBC , citing Republicans’ rejection of fiscal stimulus as a key problem. “We have a slowdown and basically a conflict about whether...

Geithner Blew Off Obama's Order to Dissolve Citigroup

New book says Obama's team routinely undermined him

(Newser) - In March 2009, in the throes of the financial crisis, Barack Obama told Tim Geithner to focus on a proposal to dissolve Citigroup—but the Treasury Secretary ignored him and never developed a plan, according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind’s new book Confidence Men. In the...

Feds Poised to Sue Banks Over Mortgages


 Feds Sue 
 Big Banks 
 Over Mortgages 
UPDATED

Feds Sue Big Banks Over Mortgages

US accuses them of dodging due diligence as crisis fallout spreads

(Newser) - The Federal Housing Finance Agency—the agency behind Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac—has filed suit against more than a dozen big banks for their role in the mortgage meltdown mess. The feds, seeking billions in compensation, accuse the banks of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities, reports the New ...

Feds Probing Standard and Poor's

Agency's behavior before financial crisis in spotlight

(Newser) - Looks like Standard & Poor's could be in for a downgrade of its own—from the Justice Department. Federal investigators are probing possible wrongdoing at the credit ratings agency in the years leading up to the financial crisis, sources tell the New York Times . The probe, expected to lead...

This Isn&#39;t a Repeat of 2008

 This Isn't a Repeat of 2008 
OPINION

This Isn't a Repeat of 2008

And since the causes are different, so is the solution: Francesco Guerrera

(Newser) - With a new round of financial turmoil cascading from country to country and market to market, many are labeling the current chaos a repeat of 2008—just substitute "downgrade" for "Lehman collapse." But that would be a mistake, as this crisis differs from 2008 in three major...

AIG Sues Bank of America in Attempt to Recover Billions

Says it was misled about quality of mortgage-backed securities

(Newser) - With the Justice Department filing few criminal charges related to the financial crisis, AIG is taking action of its own: The mostly taxpayer-owned firm is preparing to sue Bank of America for allegedly misleading it about the quality of Bank of America's mortgage-backed securities—an accusation that gets to...

Debt Crisis Could Make Lehman's Fail Look Lame

Downgrade could be worse: Neel Kashkari

(Newser) - If the debt follies in Washington result in US credit being downgraded, it could end up being a worse financial hit than the epic failure of Lehman Brothers, writes Neel Kashkari. The former assistant secretary to the Treasury, who was appointed by George W Bush to oversee the $700 billion...

Greece Passes 2nd Austerity Bill

Final hurdle before receiving bailout funds now cleared

(Newser) - Greece has bought itself some time to deal with its crippling debt crisis after lawmakers cleared the final hurdle for crucial bailout funds to be released, which will prevent the country from defaulting next month. The EU and IMF had demanded Parliament pass two bills— an austerity law and a...

Bank of America Agrees to $8.5B Settlement

With another $8.5B to come

(Newser) - Bank of America has, as expected , reached an agreement for an $8.5 billion settlement with a group of disgruntled investors who lost truckloads of money buying mortgage-backed securities from Countrywide Financial, the bank announced today. It’s the largest payoff yet from a financial services firm, the Wall Street ...

JP Morgan Coughs Up $153M to Settle Fraud Case

Investors misled about shoddy securities

(Newser) - JP Morgan has paid $153.6 million to settle SEC charges that it misled investors as it scrambled to offload mortgage-backed securities before the 2007 collapse in the housing market, reports Reuters . " We are soooo pregnant with this deal," wrote an exec in a 2007 email, referring to...

Libya Lost $1B Investing With Goldman

2008 investment slammed by financial crisis

(Newser) - Libya handed $1.3 billion in Goldman Sachs in 2008 for a range of investments—but as the financial crisis took hold, the money lost 98% of its value, a Wall Street Journal investigation finds. Goldman made a deal with Moammar Gadhafi’s sovereign-wealth fund as it sought “to...

Sheila Bair to Leave FDIC in July

Chair weathered financial crisis, oversaw closure of 350-plus banks

(Newser) - Sheila Bair is stepping down as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. this summer, ending a five-year term in which she helped craft the government's response to the 2008 financial crisis. The FDIC says Bair will leave her post as one of the government's top bank regulators...

Feds Sue Deutsche Bank Over Reckless Mortgage Lies

$1B suit may be first of many

(Newser) - The federal government is suing Deutsche Bank for $1 billion over shoddy mortgages that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The suit accuses the lender of lying to the government while arranging federal insurance on mortgages that it had recklessly approved for poor credit risks, reports the Los Angeles ...

Key Lending Exec Guilty in $2.9B Fraud

Lee Farkas convicted of bilking Colonial Bank at height of crisis

(Newser) - Lee Farkas, the founder of what was once one of America’s largest mortgage lenders, has been convicted of fraud in a huge scheme to bilk investors with bogus mortgages. Prosecutors said Farkas had orchestrated a plot in which the firm he chaired, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, secretly overdrew Colonial...

Banks to Pay SEC for Financial Crisis Fraud

They're near deal to settle allegations on mortgage-bond deals

(Newser) - A number of top Wall Street banks are on the verge of settling fraud allegations with the SEC for the mortgage-bond shenanigans that led to the financial crisis, sources tell the Wall Street Journal . The cases are being handled individually, since each bank faces substantially different charges, with the first...

Senate Probe: Goldman Sachs Shafted Clients, Lied to Us

Recommends perjury charges for Blankfein

(Newser) - Goldman Sachs may have criminally misled its clients when it sold them mortgage-backed securities without mentioning that Goldman itself would profit if they failed, the Senate’s Subcommittee on Investigations has concluded, recommending that the Justice Department and SEC consider pressing charges. The panel also recommended perjury charges against CEO...

Nicholas Kristof: GOP Gives Democracy a Bad Name



 GOP Gives 
 Democracy 
 a Bad Name 
Nicholas Kristof

GOP Gives Democracy a Bad Name

Why are we paying these people?

(Newser) - Nicholas Kristof has spent a lot of time in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and China recently, talking up the virtues of democracy. “But if Congressional Republicans actually shut down the government this weekend, they will be making a powerful argument for autocracy,” he writes in the New York Times...

Foreign Banks Got Majority of Secret Fed Loans

Court forces Fed to release info

(Newser) - When the Federal Reserve opened its “discount window” at the height of the financial crisis, a lot of foreign banks lined up. The 97-year-old program hit an all-time high during October 2008, and during its peak week, 70% of the $110.7 billion doled out went to foreign banks,...

Stories 61 - 80 | << Prev   Next >>
Most Read on Newser