MetaFilter posts tagged with money and banks

Deals of the Day

SeizeTheDay — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:39:09 -0800

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank gave a bank, whose capital ratio equaled only 1.88% of assets at the bank, versus a desired level of about 6%, TARP money after heavy lobbying. Frank inserted into the bill a provision to give special consideration to banks that had less than $1 billion of assets, had been well-capitalized as of June 30, served low- and moderate-income areas, and had taken a capital hit in the federal seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (WSJ link) In other news, Merrill disclosed compensation and benefits expenses of $15 billion for 2008, down 6 percent from 2007. That number includes salaries, benefits, retirement payments, commissions for financial advisers and severance for laid-off employees. Bank of America, which has four times as many employees, reported $18.4 billion in personnel expenses in 2008, down slightly from 2007. ~ Charlotte Observer Merrill, through John Thain, former CEO of Merrill and who recently resigned from BofA (this morning), paid this bonus to his employees in December as opposed to January (a highly unorthodox move), just prior to the deal's consummation (as he was still CEO). Meanwhile, BofA, in a memo earlier this month, Lewis said the bank has “significantly reduced the targets for yearend compensation,” with higher-ranking employees taking the bigger reductions. Lewis has recommended that he and his top reports not receive bonuses for 2008. In other news, regional banks, once thought to be spared from the worst credit losses, have shown mixed results.

But if the vaults are empty, what will Scrooge McDuck swim in?

Asparagirl — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:58:40 -0800

According to the latest biweekly numbers released last Thursday by the Federal Reserve, for the two weeks that ended January 16th American banks had negative $1.3 billion in non-borrowed reserves. This is, historically, extremely unusual; just two months ago they had $30 billion (positive, of course) in non-borrowed reserves. The only reason some banks haven't been shut due to insufficient -- negative! -- reserve requirements is that the Federal Reserve is currently loaning them enough money through the brand new TAF (Term Auction Facility) program (also running in Canada and Europe) to make up their shortfalls. Today's TAF press release says that 52 American banks or institutions are currently receiving loans totaling ~$40 billion -- but the Fed refuses to name who they are. The banks' collateral for these TAF loans are those same yucky hard-to-price CDO's that caused the banks' liquidity problems in the first place -- and the Fed is purposely using outdated prices for the collateral to prevent their being marked-to-market and thus collapsing CDO prices and freezing matters even further. Not surprisingly, some economists see the creation of the TAF as a backdoor bailout of banks in trouble. But how much longer can this go on? [via] Coincidentally (one hopes), the banking system in the virtual online world Second Life has just collapsed following a run on their banks due to inappropriate valuations and bad counterparty risk, wiping out many players' real-world investments...

50 fun facts about banks.

jbickers — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:05:50 -0800

50 fun facts about banks.

The total value of all your mines, mills, money bins, and so fourth is one multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, six hundred and twenty-three dollars and sixty-two cents!

JBennett — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:42:10 -0800

A miniature of Scrooge McDuck's money bin. (in the words of the model maker) This is a set of images documenting a model of the world's richest duck's money bin, built by me, using blueprints created by the great Don Rosa and Dan Shane.And remember Carl Barks - the mind behind the idea of a man storing all his money in a giant concrete bin.

Hail Abacha

infini — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:29:59 -0800

Dear Friend, I am a Swiss Banker currently in possession of over $ 1 Billion in funds stashed away by the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo. Our Swiss Confederation President Micheline Calmy-Rey said her government is holding just $6.6m frozen in accounts. "We discussed the question of Mobutu's funds and my government is prepared to restore the money to the DR Congo as soon as possible," Ms Rey told reporters in the DR Congo capital, Kinshasa, after talks with Mr Kabila. But we can help you get the rest of the 92.4 million dollars if you will just send us your bank account number and call to confirm your ID and pin number.

Bank penalty charges for exceeding limits or returning direct debits etc are unenforceable at law and you can get them back

sgt.serenity — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 03:35:13 -0800

Bank penalty charges are unenforceable at law and you can get them back.

rschram — Mon, 27 Aug 2001 09:41:37 -0800

Argentine Peso Crashing, Provinces Pay in 'Patacon'
The new scrip will be accepted, officials hope, until the recent US bailout makes it possible to print pesos. The IMF posted 8B dollars last week, at which time 'patacon' was being used in ATMs (Surprise!) I like the above articles noting that it "fits into a wallet like money" --- was there ever a case of design problems in emergency paper currency?