– Emanuel’s profitable stint at mortgage giant (Chicago Tribune):
Short Freddie Mac stay made him at least $320,000
– Why secretly funded DEA surveillance planes aren’t flying (McClatchy)
– G20 rioters to hang banker effigies from lampposts as city staff are told to wear disguises (Daily Mail):
Thousands of City staff told to stay at home next week, Bankers told not to wear suits and ‘dress down’,Additional 2,500 police deployed at cost of £10million
– ‘I’m having a very good crisis,’ says Soros as hedge fund managers make billions off recession (Daily Mail):
A hedge fund manager who predicted the global credit crunch has said the financial crisis has been ‘stimulating’ and the culmination of his life’s work.
– Top hedge fund managers still raking in the money (CNN Money):
LONDON (CNNMoney.com) — Despite turbulence in the financial markets and the global economic downturn, the world’s 25 top-earning hedge fund managers raked in a staggering $11.6 billion last year, according to a ranking released Wednesday.
– Why Gold Prices Didn’t Really Rise Last Week (Seeking Alpha)
– Stimulus? U.S. to buy Chinese condoms, ending Alabama jobs (McClatchy)
– IMF rescues Romania with €20bn aid while Serbia handed €4bn (Telegraph):
Romania is the seventh country in the region to need IMF help along with Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, and Belarus. Serbia on Wednesday secured a €4bn bail-out and Bosnia said it was starting rescue talks.
– Revised Rate Shows G.D.P. Is Falling at a Faster Pace (New York Times):
And what says Obama: Barack Obama trumpets ‘signs of economic progress’ (Telegraph)
– Jobless claims top 5.5 million (CNN):
(More signs of economic progress!)
– GM says 7500 hourly workers decide to leave (AP)
– Official says post office is running out of cash (CourierPostOnline):
Even if the agency succeeds in reaching its planned cost cuts of $5.9 billion, there could still be a $6 billion deficit in 2010, Potter said.
– U.S. Vows To Sustain Dollar’s Dominance (Washington Post)
– IBM and the Rebirth of Outsourcing (TIME)
– Merkel Makes Like Obama With German Stimulus Excluding Europe (Bloomberg):
As global consumer demand melts away, slowing production lines across Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is injecting 82 billion euros ($110 billion) into the economy, the biggest stimulus package in Europe. (If the people would only understand what all these politicians are doing.)
– Obama Plans to Send 4,000 Troops to Train Afghans (Bloomberg)
– US backing for world currency stuns markets (Telegraph):
US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner shocked global markets by revealing that Washington is “quite open” to Chinese proposals for the gradual development of a global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund.
– Geithner ‘power grab’ could worry creditors (Financial Times)
– Geithner to Seek Power Over Hedge Funds, Derivatives (Bloomberg):
March 26 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will ask Congress to bring large hedge funds, private-equity firms and derivatives markets under federal supervision for the first time as part of a revamp of U.S. financial rules.
– Financiers Plan To Put Controls On Derivatives (New York Times):
With the blessing of the Federal Government, some of the world’s largest financial institutions reached an agreement today to try to set their own industrywide standards in the huge and volatile market of the complex securities known as derivatives. (They are the ones that created this mess in the first place and now they are the ones to control it?!?!)
– Bank of England must up its commitment (Financial Times):
After the initial burst of euphoria over the UK’s quantitative easing programme at the start of the month, the Bank of England’s highly experimental and risky strategy of buying its own government bonds has lost some momentum. (… and the pound some value. If the Bank of England will continue to buy bonds, then soon it will be the largest holder of them and the pound will be toilet paper.)
– Mervyn King’s salvo first in wider war (Telegraph):
The Bank of England governor’s warning that the government can’t afford another big fiscal boost should be seen as an attempt to avoid no fewer than three crises that could be looming: a fiscal crisis, a constitutional clash and an inflation crisis.
– JPMorgan Said to Delay Contributions to Employees’ 401(k) Plans (Bloomberg)
– Ford ready to get rid of Volvo at huge loss (Times Online)
– Laser eye surgery risks ‘underplayed by opticians’ (Guardian):
More than half the UK-based clinics visited by researchers from the consumer group – including Optical Express, Optimax and Ultralase – gave unsatisfactory advice, and none of the consultations given were rated as “good” by its panel of laser eye experts.