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The U.S. Treasury faces historic financing demands from a weakening economy and the added costs of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue program, the department's top domestic finance official said today.
“This year's financing needs will be unprecedented,'' said Anthony Ryan, the Treasury's acting undersecretary for domestic finance, at a Securities Industry and Financial […]

Ten years ago, Chrysler’s pairing with Daimler-Benz AG of Germany was among the largest mergers in industrial history and put the U.S. automaker on the brink of globalization. The future looked bright and the 7,600 Chrysler jobs in Fenton appeared secure.
Now Chrysler LLC is on the brink of another merger. But this […]

Vietnamese annual inflation slowed for a second month in October, eased by fuel-price cuts and the reluctance of local banks to make loans. The monthly inflation rate declined for the first time since March 2006.
Consumer prices climbed 26.7 percent in October from the same time a year earlier, according to figures released today […]

French business confidence fell to the lowest in almost 15 years as the global credit crisis worsened, threatening to deepen a likely recession in the euro region's second-largest economy.
An index of sentiment among 4,000 manufacturers declined to 88 in October from 91 the previous month, according to Insee, the Paris-based national statistics office. […]

Lawmakers and officials moved toward forging a second fiscal stimulus bill after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke endorsed the idea and the Bush administration dropped its opposition.
Bernanke warned legislators yesterday the credit crunch is “hitting home,'' with Americans unable to get auto loans and companies denied cash, and recommended measures to help […]

Arthur Levitt, the one-time chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, blamed his former agency Thursday for failures he said helped cause the financial meltdown.
A resource-strapped SEC allowed confusion and reckless risk-taking to dominate financial markets, Levitt, who led the agency from 1993 to 2001, told the Senate Banking Committee.
"As the markets grew larger […]

Monster Worldwide Inc.'s index of online job advertisements in seven European Union countries fell for a second month in September as demand for banking, automotive and transport workers declined.
The Monster Employment Index Europe, which surveys online job postings in Germany, the U.K., France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Sweden, fell to 155 from […]

WASHINGTON — The government will buy an ownership stake in a broad array of American banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said late Friday, announcing the historic step after stock markets jolted still lower around the world despite all efforts to slow the selling stampede.
Separately, the […]

European central banks continued to push liquidity at the financial sector Thursday, offering $120 billion to prop up lending between banks.
The European Central Bank, representing the 15 countries that use the euro currency, offered $100 billion, while the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank each offered $10 billion.
Terms of the offers are […]

The European Union said Tuesday it will raise its minimum bank deposit guarantee to €50,000 as EU finance ministers agreed on guidelines to deal with banks in danger of collapse amid the global financial crisis.
But French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said EU finance ministers were unable to agree on France’s proposal to hike the […]