“US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has proposed the Federal Reserve be given broad powers to regulate the financial industry” says Fred Sheehan.
“He could not have nominated a more incompetent body. The Coast Guard would do a better job.”
“Financial upheaval owes homage to derivatives that shrouded the massive growth in debt and leverage.”
Swiss bank UBS makes front-page news on The Wall Street Journal for its thumping quarterly loss of more than $12 billion on write-downs of $19 billion. The losses have claimed chairman Marc Ospel.
– USA 2008: The Great Depression
Brit newspaper The Independent leads with “dismal projections” that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will rely on government food stamps to survive, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.
Paulson plan will be “dead on arrival”, according to The New York Times, as “lawmakers and lobbyists from an array of industries” oppose to the plan to create a new financial regulatory system…