Only 2nd Stimulus Can Save US: Stiglitz

Chrysler ad a political football

(NEWSER) - God bless America ... and the Chrysler bailout ... seemed to be the message that left football fans misty-eyed after Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl Chrysler ad. It's "halftime" in America, and we're all pulling together for a brighter economic future, says the gravelly-voiced star. But Eastwood was opposed to the bailout that made the Chrysler turnaround possible, and now the ad has become a political football as Dems score points with it and the GOP tackles it, notes ABC News . “Saving the American Auto Industry: Something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on," crowed White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer on Twitter, referring to Eminem’s Chrysler ad during last year's Super Bowl. "Powerful spot," chimed in Obama re-election strategist David Axelrod. But George Bush's political maven Karl Rove snapped that he was "offended" by the ad, which he argued was orchestrated by the administration to paint a rosy future. More»

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»