Word: interestingly
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Beleaguered financial institutions looking to shore up their funding are battling for your deposit dollars, driving interest rates on bank products abnormally high. At first glance, that's fantastic news for consumers who are finding CDs that yield 4% and money-market accounts that pay 3%. But the competition for money - which will surely intensify as new bank holding companies like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and American Express amp up efforts to attract deposits - is also squeezing banks' profit margins, further straining an already weak industry and stressing smaller banks, many of which didn't go hog wild making risky...
...That means a bank that used to borrow at about 2.5% and lend at 5% now borrows at 2.5% and lends at 4% - an entire percentage point has been stripped from the bank's ability to make money. More than half of all banks saw their net interest margin - a measure of profit - fall in the third quarter compared with a year ago, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. "After you pay your stockholders and employees, maintain your capital ratio and fund your growth, it gets pretty tight," says Mike Menzies, president and CEO of Easton Bank & Trust...
None of the researchers believe that stimulant maintenance is a panacea or that it will work for every cocaine or meth addict. But there is no medical treatment that works 100% of the time. "I think we have found something of potential benefit, and it should be met with interest and further research, rather than disdain," Grabowski says...
...money and went home, the repercussions for America would be catastrophic. At a moment when the already large U.S. budget deficit is poised to skyrocket, thanks to the various bailouts and stimulus packages Washington has passed to cope with the economic crisis, a pullout of Chinese assets would send interest rates soaring, and a deepening recession could become something worse...
...more pressing topic of discussion at the meeting this week was the possibility of even more government stimulus coming in China - on top of the 4 trillion RMB ($588 billion) package China announced to great fanfare a month ago. Two weeks later, Beijing upped the ante with an interest-rate cut and tax rebates, and now there are unconfirmed reports that an additional spending plan is being prepared as China's economic data continue to weaken. That would not be surprising. The best way for China to help the world economy at this point is to help itself...