Word: banking
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Once some banks do sell, though, it could force a widespread, and revealing, revaluation of similar assets on every bank's books. The banks have been asking regulators and accountants for, and getting, relief from having to mark some of their assets to market prices because the markets for many debt securities are so clearly broken. But the prices prevailing in a smoothly functioning government-subsidized market will be hard to ignore. This has led to speculation in the economics blogosphere that banks might game the program by conniving with investors to overbid for assets. That's not inconceivable...
...Still, even small differences can cause major rifts in families, and the competing budgets suggest the challenges Obama's agenda faces. Both the House and Senate, after all, removed Obama's $250 billion-$750 billion placeholder request for more bank bailout funds. And they both slashed the Administration's proposed 10% increase in nondefense discretionary spending (for education, environment and health initiatives, among other things), to 7% in the Senate and 7%-9% in the House. The Senate stripped the President's signature middle-class tax cuts, known as "Making Work to Pay," of $400 for individuals...
...predecessor Hank Paulson, FDIC chief Sheila Bair and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have so far used ad hoc powers to erect two of those crucial four pillars. Last fall they introduced Fed-sponsored insurance for money-market deposits, the equivalent of the FDIC insurance that exists for regular bank accounts. At the same time, they opened Fed lending to financial-services companies, making the Fed the lender of last resort for those firms, just as it is for traditional banks. In the past two days, Geithner unveiled the final two safeguards that he, Bernanke and Bair believe will help...
...bank listed some of those measures: Russia has raised tariffs on used cars, Argentina imposed new licensing arrangements for imports, China banned Irish pork, India banned Chinese toys. No fewer than 13 countries have granted subsidies to various parts of the automobile industry. And the bank didn't mention the nasty spat that has broken out between the U.S and Mexico; the U.S. has stopped a program that allowed Mexican trucks on American roads, and Mexico has retaliated with tariff increases. Said World Bank president Robert Zoellick: "Leaders must not heed the siren song of protectionist fixes. Economic isolationism...
...reduced demand and financial flows explain the immediate cause of the downturn in trade, a different - and potentially more damaging - specter looms: the return of protectionism. In a recent report, the World Bank found that although the G-20 nations pledged themselves to avoid protectionist measures when they met in Washington last November, no fewer than 17 of them have, since then, "implemented measures whose effect is to restrict trade at the expense of other countries...