Word: banks
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...indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, have been known to consult javanese mystics who mix islam, hinduism and animist beliefs. But the most occult obsessed nation in the region is easily Burma. Former dictator Ne Win was so consumed by numerology that in 1987 he demonetized all bank notes and reissued ones only with the number nine or divisible by the number nine. That was his lucky number, but it proved less auspicious for the millions who had their savings wiped out in the move. On the advice of astrologers, he also shot his reflection in a mirror...
...triggered a nearly convulsive political response, given that elections are won and lost over the state of the economy and the mind-set of wage earners. That's why President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address, called jobs his "No. 1 focus" and proposed repurposing bank-bailout money to lend more to small businesses, which would then, presumably, generate jobs. On March 17, Congress passed a job-creation bill that includes, among other things, an estimated $13 billion worth of tax incentives to coax companies into adding to their payrolls. (See 10 perfect jobs for the recession...
...knowing the bottom-line costs of the massive new initiatives out of Washington on health care reform and carbon-emission regulation. Even companies that are financially fit often don't feel like taking the risk of ramping up operations and hiring more workers. There's been political pressure on banks to lend, but the problem for some bankers, like Frost Bank CEO Dick Evans, is that many businesses are debt-shy. "I'm aggressively trying to make loans, but right now they don't want to borrow," he says. "At this point," says Harvard Business School strategy expert Michael Porter...
...media, quoting Guatemalan government sources, have reported that Portillo's alleged take was approximately $70 million. Aside from the Taiwanese funds, he's also accused of embezzling about $4 million from Guatemala's Defense Ministry. He allegedly laundered the money through accounts in Guatemala and through U.S. and European banks. It was a financial shell game that involved overdrafts so massive, say authorities, that two Guatemalan banks are now insolvent and the country's only state-run mortgage bank is teetering on collapse. (See a profile of U.S. prosecutor Preet Bharara...
...Taiwan case, according to the U.S. indictment, Portillo took three checks in 2000 from the Taiwanese government that were earmarked for Guatemala's Libraries for Peace program and deposited them in an account at Hamilton Bank in Miami that was held by a political supporter and friend. He then allegedly wired a chunk of it to an account at Washington-based Riggs Bank and later to a Paris bank account jointly held by his daughter and ex-wife. Portillo was indicted in New York City because some of the banks and branches he allegedly used were located there...