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Citigroup
Banking behemoth Citigroup plans to melt up to $500bn in assets off its balance sheet within three years. That is equivalent to about a fifth of its total, or the US defence budget for this fiscal year
Vallejo goes bust
Legislators are battling with Vallejo’s leaky finances – the US city is filing for bankruptcy. The median property price has tumbled by about one-third since March 2007
Regulatory backlash
In the wake of the credit crunch, regulators and industry groups have been falling over themselves to find ways to prevent similar problems from occurring again
China and international law
China’s human rights record is being denounced, but does Beijing do any better on international legal issues that cut to the heart of the world economy?
Despondent consumers
Consider how life has changed for the US consumer. Booming home prices have tanked. Petrol has jumped to $4 in some areas. Scary stories of rice rationing highlight mounting inflation
The SEC and market rumours
The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled with
a Wall Street trader accused of spreading false rumours concerning Blackstone’s bid for Alliance Data Systems
US regional banks
This was supposed to be the year of big mergers between regional US banks but what better than a lending crisis to sort out an overpopulated sector?
Ambac whacked
Remember the monolines? Before Bear Stearns took centre stage, embattled bond insurers represented the biggest worry on Wall Street. Ambac’s latest results should help to drag back the spotlight
The safety of dividends
Companies can fake earnings and be wildly over optimistic. But dividends, it is argued, are impossible to make up and, for a diversified basket of stocks, hardly ever fall
Leverage and RBS
Being a “Royal” bank means not apologising to your subjects. The court view is that the £12bn rights issue announced by RBS was not a result of management wrongdoing



