The US government is dramatically escalating its response to the financial crisis by planning to invest $250 billion in the country’s banks, forcing nine of the largest to accept a Treasury stake in what amounts to a partial nationalization.
News that European governments also planned to take stakes in their banks and anticipation of new U.S. [...]

The euro had its biggest one-day drop against the yen since its debut in 1999 as the deepening credit crisis prompted European governments to pledge bailouts for troubled banks while stopping short of coordinated action.
The 15-nation currency declined to a 14-month low against the dollar and the weakest in 2 1/2 years versus the [...]

PARIS – French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Friday the world stood on the "edge of the abyss", gripped by a global financial crisis now threatening industry, trade and jobs worldwide.
Fillon’s words echoed a growing sense of alarm sweeping EU capitals ahead of an expected U.S. Congressional vote on Friday on a $700 billion [...]

MUNSTER, Ind. – Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a vote Friday in the Democratic-controlled Congress on a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax, a plan that Barack Obama dismissed as a political stunt that would cost thousands of construction jobs.
"It’s a Shell game. Literally," Obama said to laughter from his campaign audience, adding it [...]

This filing season, the biggest beneficiaries of new tax laws are homeowners.
Unfortunately for some, any joy about a new tax break is tempered by the fact that it was created because they were having trouble paying their mortgages.
On a more positive note, another new law now allows some homeowners to deduct a common insurance cost.
A [...]

WASHINGTON – The FBI on Tuesday said it is investigating 14 companies for possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other violations in connection with home loans made to risky borrowers.
Agency officials did not identify the companies under investigation but said the wide-ranging probe, which began in spring 2007, involves companies across the financial services industry, [...]

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – Societe Generale’s shock disclosure of a fraud that lost it $7 billion has left investors wondering about a link between the fiasco and Monday’s European stock market rout.
The sharp fall, which was followed by an emergency U.S. rate cut, came as SocGen tried to close out positions built up by one of [...]

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) – World business leaders and political powerbrokers wrapped up their annual gathering in Davos on Saturday by revisiting the issue of global economic uncertainty that clouded this year’s event.
International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was to lead a round-table discussion on the economic outlook for 2008 amid talk of a US recession [...]

FRANKFURT (AFP) – The European Central Bank said Wednesday it drained a further 168.64 billion euros (247.61 billion dollars) from eurozone money markets with a new offer aimed at mopping up excess liquidity.
The tender had a fixed rate of 4.0 percent, the same level as the ECB’s benchmark lending rate. Fifty-four banks participated in the [...]