| Rock rescue explained
At the end of the year, the bank has £105. Where did the extra £5 come from? Only from a further bank loan, or from a loan from somebody else who has gone into debt. Sooner or later this system has to be 'adjusted', either by inflation( which effectively cancels debt) or by borrowers going bankrupt (the debt is cancelled as unpayable), or by the bank going the same way( too many unpayable debts counted as assets). Can the estimable Robert Peston please tell me if i have this right? .
Feds looking into alleged metro Ponzi scheme
Federal agents are investigating several people suspected of running a fraudulent investment scheme that helped pay for stock market day trading and gambling trips to Las Vegas. The alleged scheme used a number of Twin Cities business entities and is believed to have tapped more than 200 investors nationwide for at least $10.9 million, according to a sworn statement filed this month in Minneapolis federal court to obtain three search warrants. U.S. Postal Inspector Rob Strande, who filed the statement, said the losses have not been determined, but that they could be substantial. Strande said in the affidavit that the suspects solicited investors by promising returns of 20 to 2,200 percent over the course of one to 18 months. Potential investors were told that their money would go to unspecified ventures -- including gold, diamonds and oil commodities -- he said.
RUSAL likely to switch IPO from Britain to Hong Kong
Russia's United Company RUSAL, the world's top primary aluminium producer, is considering moving its initial public offering of shares from London to Hong Kong, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The newspaper quoted a senior executive at Basic Element, the holding company of billionaire businessman Oleg Deripaska which owns 66 percent of Rusal, as saying there was a 95 percent chance of a listing in Hong Kong instead of Britain. He said the likely move was prompted by the greater appetite for Russian shares among investors in Hong Kong, London's more stringent listing regulations and the diplomatic feud between Moscow and London. Relations between the two, soured for years over Moscow's demands for the extradition of several Russian emigres in London, have dramatically worsened since another emigre, Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, was killed by radiation poisoning in London in 2006.
Ward Churchill Fired
In the years before 2005, he gained a reputation at Colorado and on the college lecture circuit nationally as an impassioned speaker and writer on behalf of Native Americans. Most of his speeches were attended by supporters of his views, so he did not attract widespread criticism. All of that changed early in 2005, however, when Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College. Some professors there, who did not feel Churchill was an ideal speaker, circulated some of his writings, including an essay with the the now notorious remark comparing World Trade Center victims on 9/11 to "little Eichmanns." Within days, the controversy spread — with Hamilton under pressure to uninvite Churchill and Colorado under pressure to fire him. Hamilton stood by its invitation, on academic freedom grounds, but in the end called off the appearance, based on threats of violence.
Police raid apartment of rogue trader and bank HQ
Police have taken into custody the trader blamed for a 4.9 billion euros (US$7 billion) fraud at French bank Societe Generale, a judicial source said yesterday. The source said Jerome Kerviel, 31, was being held for questioning. Under French law, suspects can be held for an initial 24-hour period before any charges are pressed, but this can be extended. Police nabbed Kerviel from his vehicle in the underground car park of the financial brigade's offices in Paris, a source close to the investigation said. He was taken to a police station in Paris at about 2pm. The detention followed a police raid on Kerviel's apartment on Friday in the wealthy Paris suburb of Neuilly sur Seine, during which documents were seized. Police officers also went on Friday to the bank's Paris headquarters to seize Kerviel's computer files, prosecutors said, adding that "some items useful to the inquiry" were handed over voluntarily.
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