Former AIG Chief Greenberg to Testify Today

For a period of three years

(AP) - The European Central Bank loaned a massive $639 billion to 523 banks for an exceptionally long period of three years to steady a financial system that is under pressure from the euro zone debt crisis. It is the biggest ECB infusion of credit into the banking system in the 13-year history of the euro. The ECB is trying to make sure that banks have enough ready cash so they can keep on lending to businesses. Otherwise, a credit crunch could choke off growth and spread the debt crisis to the wider economy through the banks. More»

So why haven't homeowners been bailed out?

(NEWSER) - If you were trying to get a loan in southern Florida in 2007, bankers like James Theckston were there to help. "If you had some old bag lady walking down the street and she had a decent credit score, she got a loan," Chase's then-regional VP of Home Finance tells Nicholas Kristof. And Theckston says there's no doubt that though borrowers bear some responsibility for what Kristof describes as their "harebrained decisions," the bankers "were far more culpable," writes the New York Times columnist. More»

Banks took in billions of dollars, even as they claimed to be healthy

(NEWSER) - For more than two years, the Fed and the banks it bailed out during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis have kept many of the details of the massive, multi-trillion-dollar bailout a secret. But, thanks to Freedom of Information Act requests, 29,000 pages of bailout details are pouring out of the Fed at last, and those details are explained in an extended and damning report by Bloomberg Markets magazine. Among the biggest revelations:

• $7.77 trillion: the total amount doled out in aid by the Fed to all the banks, as of March 2009, which Bloomberg notes surpasses 50% of the value of "everything produced in the US that year." In comparison, the $700 billion TARP "at least had some strings attached," says one House Democrat. "With the Fed programs, there was nothing."

They say takeover violated investors' fifth amendment rights

(NEWSER) - Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg is suing the US government for $25 million for having the effrontery to bail out the dying insurer. Greenberg was ousted in 2005 after allegedly cooking AIG’s books to inflate its value, but still had a keen interest in the company during the bailout, because his firm, Starr International Co., was its largest shareholder. Now Greenberg’s saying that the bailout of the firm violated shareholders’ constitutional rights, the Wall Street Journal reports. More»

Austerity measures likely to pass despite enraged public

(AP) - A general strike paralyzed Greece a second day as outraged protesters gathered by the tens of thousands outside parliament today, where lawmakers prepared to vote on intensely unpopular austerity measures needed to secure the next $11 billion installment from the international rescue loans that have so far prevented the country from sliding into bankruptcy. The austerity bill won initial approval in a first vote last night, and deputies are now to vote on the details. "If the law is not approved, including every single article it contains ... the country will once again serve as the scapegoat on which Europe's historic, political, and institutional shortcomings will be dumped," threatened Greece's finance minister. More»