Word: toxicants
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrück, have spent months saying they will never let irresponsible German banks off the hook by taking their toxic assets and putting them into some sort of government-backed bad bank...
...that was before U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled his plan to do just that with the toxic debts of U.S. banks. The move has won plaudits on Wall Street and even a knowing nod from Main Street U.S.A., which understands that the plan is a necessary evil. In Germany, it has also fueled a fierce debate about whether Merkel is wrong and how Berlin might get toxic assets off German banks' books without making taxpayers foot the bill. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis...
...speech to Germany's banking élite, Merkel also acknowledged that Europeans were under pressure to deal with the issue of toxic debt. "I am dying to see how the American model will work and whether private-sector incentives can actually sell the more difficult assets," she said skeptically. "But we can't dodge the issue because otherwise it will take far too long before the banks can return to their full strength...
...German banks have an estimated $265 billion to $400 billion in bad debt on their books. Put another way: that's as much as 12% of German GDP. The U.S. bad-bank plans calls for purchasing up to $1 trillion in toxic debt, equivalent to 6.8% of U.S. GDP. German banks have about $550 billion in cash reserves. So, it's not hard to figure out what would happen to the real economy if the banks are left on their own to work through loan failure of this magnitude. "Germany has not succeeded yet in getting control of the financial...
...rotten time to be a banker. Whether their fingerprints are on a single credit default swap or collateralized debt obligation or not, financiers are being fingered for blowing up the global economy. The assets they traded are "toxic" and their bonuses "obscene." And members of the public, it seems, are fed up with the lot of them. In a leaked security memo sent to staff last week, bosses at AIG warned workers to keep an eye out for aggressors amid the "growing sense of public attention fueled by increased media scrutiny." AIG employees were advised to ditch AIG apparel...