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The chaos unfolding in the new Republican-controlled House shows that analysis, if it was ever true, certainly doesn’t hold today. Since the new Congress began Tuesday, every time Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has called a vote to be elected speaker, he has gotten no closer to the gavel. Though there is no shortage of backroom deal-making going on among House Republicans, either, the public nature of the leadership fight means many of the concessions McCarthy is offering have been announced by his opponents. Back in 1995, Newt Gingrich nudged aside longtime House Republican leader Bob Michel of Illinois to become the first Republican speaker of the House in 40 years after President George H.W. That helped oust House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in 2015 and then his successor, Paul Ryan, R-Wis., once a conservative darling.

☆ Southwest airlines flight delays and cancellations are only the tip of the iceberg
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( William J. Mcgee | William J. Mcgee Is The Senior Fellow For Aviation At American Economic Liberties Project | A Nonprofit Fighting Concentrated Economic Power | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

I can tell you without hesitation: Both the airlines and the Transportation Department are at fault. Only Congress and the Transportation Department oversee airlines, and the department and its subsidiary, the FAA, have long struggled with a dual mandate to both promote and regulate airlines. Obviously the airline industry also has become too big to care, despite the $54 billion taxpayer bailout during Covid. Since then, the U.S. airline industry has returned to profitability and, in some cases, notched record revenues. Domestic airlines are mistreating passengers with impunity and are clearly unafraid of backlash from consumers, the media or the Transportation Department.

☆ Germany's half-a-trillion dollar energy bazooka may not be enough
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Christoph Steitz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Almost half a trillion dollars, and counting, since the Ukraine war jolted it into an energy crisis nine months ago. The money set aside stands at up to 440 billion euros ($465 billion), according to the calculations, which provide the first combined tally of all of Germany's drives aimed at avoiding running out of power and securing new sources of energy. That equates to about 1.5 billion euros a day since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Energy rationing is a risk in the event of a long cold spell this winter, Germany's first in half a century without Russian gas. There's no security in sight either, with the push to build up of two alternatives to Russian fuel - liquefied natural gas (LNG) and renewables - years away from targeted levels.

☆ AIG subsidiary files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 14 (Reuters) - American International Group Inc said on Wednesday its subsidiary, AIG Financial Products (FP), had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to complete the wind down of a business unit that was a central figure in the 2008 financial crisis. AIG Financial Products largely ceased operations in 2008, and its bankruptcy will not have a material impact on AIG or on life and retirement insurer Corebridge Financial Inc (CRBG.N), which AIG recently spun off, AIG said. AIG Financial Products issued the credit default swaps that put AIG on the hook for billions of dollars in losses during the collapse of subprime mortgage markets, according to court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. AIG Financial Products has no ongoing operations or employees of its own, but it maintained a small portfolio of financial products after largely shutting down in 2008. It owes more than $37 billion to its parent company AIG on loans related to the 2008 crash, according to court documents.

☆ Greek economy shrinks in Q3 on higher imports, lower public spending
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ATHENS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Greece's economy shrank in July-to-September compared with the second quarter, as declining net exports and public spending offset strong tourism, statistics service (ELSTAT) said on Wednesday. Seasonally adjusted data showed gross domestic product dropped by 0.5% in the third quarter, from a downwardly revised 0.6% growth rate in the previous quarter. Exports dropped by 3.3% in the third quarter compared with a 0.4% rise in the second quarter, with final government consumption also reduced by 0.6%. The country's growth slowed down to 2.8% year-on-year from a downwardly revised 7.1% growth in the second quarter. The government projects that the economy will grow by 5.6% this year thanks to higher-than-expected tourism receipts and strong consumer spending.

HONG KONG, Nov 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - President Xi Jinping is wrapping up his massive property stress test, but it looks like few have passed. It was precisely what the now near-collapsed China Evergrande (3333.HK) had asked for back in 2020, before regulators dashed its hopes of listing in the Chinese mainland. Among them is Country Garden (2007.HK), whose U.S. dollar bond that matures in January has rebounded 43% to 96 cents on the dollar this month. In comparison, an Evergrande bond due in January still trades at 5.5 cents. These property bailouts are set to leave most in the sector out in the cold.

☆ Explainer: Why Pakistan's army chief matters far beyond its borders
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Even when a civilian government holds power, Pakistan's generals retain a dominant influence over security matters and foreign affairs. He later headed Pakistan's two most influential intelligence agencies - Military Intelligence (MI) in 2017 and then the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 2018. WHY IT MATTERS GLOBALLYPakistan's army chief will play a key role in managing risks of conflict with nuclear-armed rival India on its eastern border, while dealing with potential instability and friction with Afghanistan on its western frontier. The incoming army chief could potentially play a key role in lowering the political temperature as Pakistan attempts to survive an economic crisis and recover from historic floods. He even summoned Pakistan's top industrialists to a meeting at army headquarters to encourage them to pay more tax.

☆ A first-generation college student with $146,000 in student debt says blocking Biden's relief 'feels like a really sick game': 'It's not the American dream that we were promised'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Guilherme Lopes, 31, is a first-generation college student with $146,000 in student debt. He said the recent court decisions blocking the debt relief "feels like a really sick game." When his high-school guidance counselors advised him to take out student loans to finance his education, that's exactly what he did. He also had high hopes that it would aid his mother and brother, who also hold student debt. While Biden's administration has expressed confidence that it will prevail in court, Lopes said he's upset these lawsuits even happened in the first place.

☆ Special Report: FTX's Bankman-Fried begged for a rescue even as he revealed huge holes in firm's books
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Angus Berwick Anirban Sen Elizabeth Howcroft Lawrence Delevingne | Angus Berwick | Anirban Sen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +22 min

Sequoia was shocked at the amount of money Bankman-Fried needed to save FTX, according to the sources, while Apollo first asked for more information, only to later decline. The booklet flagged the risks of crypto trading, particularly how sudden sales of tokens could trigger a "domino effect" that would lead to a "cascading set of liquidity failures." Using profits from Alameda, Bankman-Fried launched FTX in 2019. From almost nothing in 2019, FTX handled about 10% of global crypto trading this year, a September document shows. At one point, he lived in a penthouse overlooking the Caribbean, valued at almost $40 million, according to two people who worked with FTX.

☆ The FTX Crypto Fiasco
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This week’s investor run on the FTX crypto-currency exchange marks round two of the great crypto crackup, and so far the victims are consenting adults. Barring an unexpected spread to the banking system, this is another in the long line of easy-money manias turned to panic. FTX CEO Sam Bankman -Fried has been the crypto industry’s leading champion. This year he engineered bailouts of several troubled crypto firms, including lenders Voyager Digital and BlockFi Inc., as plunging digital asset values exposed bad bets and computer coding. Recall the May collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD, whose stable value was based on an algorithm.

Jordan Vonderhaar | Bloomberg | Getty Imageswatch nowSaylor was speaking on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" as FTX's demise roiled the crypto market. Bitcoin tumbled 19% in December, as investors rotated into assets deemed safer in a tumultuous economy. David Marcus, former head of crypto at Facebook parent Meta , used a phrase that would soon enter the lexicon. "It's during crypto winters that the best entrepreneurs build the better companies," Marcus wrote in a Jan. 24 tweet. Ryan Gilbert, founder of fintech venture firm Launchpad Capital, said the crypto world is facing a crisis of confidence after the FTX implosion.

☆ A Voyager investor says the FTX meltdown puts the bankrupt crypto lender's bailout in jeopardy, with $1.3 billion of customer assets on the line
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

FTX US, led by Sam Bankman-Fried, was set to buy the assets of the bankrupt crypto-lender Voyager. Bankman-Fried tweeted Thursday that FTX US, which is a separate company from FTX, was "100% liquid." FTX US' bailout was set to offer some relief to Voyager's customers, who faced the complete loss of their crypto assets, with claims of about $1.8 billion in total. Furthermore, some FTX customers had reported issues making withdrawals from their accounts, raising concerns about FTX's liquidity. On Thursday, Bankman-Fried estimated that FTX only had 80% available in liquid assets of the roughly $5 billion in assets customers withdrew on Sunday.

☆ 'Dr Doom' economist Nouriel Roubini suggests FTX's rescue deal shows how crypto is a Ponzi scheme: 'Who will bail out Binance?'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Zahra Tayeb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Nouriel Roubini flagged FTX's rescue deal for Binance as a sign crypto investing is a Ponzi scheme. The crypto critic wondered who will bail out Binance when that "house of cards collapses". Crypto exchange Binance stepped in Tuesday with a potential takeover deal to rescue its rival FTX, which it said is facing a liquidity crunch. "First FTX bails out collapsing crypto Ponzi scams. Now FTX is collapsing & being bailed out by Binance," Roubini said in a Tuesday tweet.

☆ Ryanair is booming as flyers ditch pricier airlines
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The low-cost carrier posted its highest ever half-year profit on Monday, earning €1.37 billion ($1.36 billion) for the six months through September. That beat its previous record high of €1.15 billion ($1.14 billion) in 2019. It carried 95.1 million passengers during the period, up from 39.1 million a year ago. The strong earnings mean the company will reverse pandemic pay cuts for over 90% of its pilots and cabin crew from next month — earlier than planned. “These long-term pay agreements with the vast majority of our people have now delivered fully restored pay 28 months earlier than previously agreed,” O’Leary said.

☆ EXCLUSIVE Greece to borrow up to 8 bln euros from bond markets in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Lefteris Papadimas | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The country emerged from a decade-long debt crisis in 2018 and since then has relied solely on bond markets to cover its borrowing needs. It has raised about 8 billion euros so far this year. We will borrow 7-8 billion euros from the bond markets," a finance ministry official told Reuters. Greece also plans to issue its first green bond in 2023, an issue which was initially scheduled for this year. Greece, still the euro zone's most indebted country, has a cash buffer of about 38 billion euros, enough to cover its borrowing needs for at least two years without tapping international bond markets.

☆ Why China won't bail out its real estate sector
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

A year after Chinese developer Evergrande 's debt problems began rattling investors, the country's real estate troubles have only gotten worse. Some homebuyers refused to pay their mortgages due to construction delays, while property sales plunged. He expects Beijing will want to gradually resolve the problems in real estate and reduce the industry's role in the economy. Explosive growth in China's real estate industry over the last two decades minted tycoons who were not afraid of flaunting their wealth. It contrasts with an average four to five quarters for previous real estate slumps in China, the report said.

Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Tore Ellingsen, Hans Ellegren and John Hassler announce the 2022 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, during a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden October 10, 2022. The winners are Ben S. Bernanke (USA), Douglas W. Diamond (USA) and Philip H. Dybvig (USA). "Some households and some firms are already weakened," Gernot Doppelhofer, professor at the economics department of the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) said. The economics prize is not one of the original five awards created in the 1895 will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel. It was established by Sweden's central bank and first awarded in 1969, its full and formal name being the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

☆ Bernanke bank-crisis Nobel requires markets sequel
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Rarely has an academic put theory into practice like Ben Bernanke. Yet the resulting era of tight bank regulation and ultra-low interest rates helped build up risks in financial markets which are only slowly becoming apparent. Bernanke’s research, and that of fellow laureates Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, put lenders at the heart of the economy. In 2021, they accounted for about half of total global financial assets, compared with two-fifths for banks. Years of loose monetary policy, under Bernanke and his successors, have pushed many of these market players to take on more risk.

☆ Russia excludes some IT professionals, bankers and journalists from mobilisation
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

A Russian service member stands next to a mobile recruitment center for military service under contract in Rostov-on-Don, Russia September 17, 2022. REUTERS/Sergey PivovarovSept 23 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it was exempting some bankers, IT workers and journalists from being drafted into the army to serve in Ukraine under President Vladimir Putin's mobilisation. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that Russia would seek to call up 300,000 additional troops for Russia's war in Ukraine in what the Kremlin calls a "partial mobilisation". The exceptions apply to some IT workers, telecommunications workers, finance professionals, as well as some employees at "systemically-important" mass media outlets and interdependent suppliers including registered media and broadcasters. Russia's central bank welcomed the move to exclude some financial professionals from being called up and said some of its staff met the relevant criteria.

☆ Uniper Deal Is Lehman Moment for European Energy
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Rochelle Toplensky | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Gas giant Uniper is too big to fail, and German government officials are warning of further bailouts. Germany’s nationalization of gas giant Uniper announced Wednesday, lays bare the seismic ructions in the once-sleepy world of European utilities triggered by the new Cold War with Russia. Investing in the sector will change dramatically. Berlin said it would inject €8 billion, equivalent to $7.9 billion, in return for new equity at a nominal value of €1.70 a share. It will also buy Finnish utility company Fortum ’s majority stake in Uniper at the same rate.

☆ The world is staring down a brutal winter of soaring energy prices, rolling blackouts, and freezing homes. But there's a clear solution to the crisis — if we aren't too scared to use it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Kartik Menon | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Confronted with energy shortfalls into the colder months and years of potential energy uncertainty, one solution has gained traction around the globe: nuclear energy. Many nations, including the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, and Japan, have begun or reconsidered massive sovereign investment into nuclear power. Reliable, low-cost, and carbon-free, nuclear energy allows these nations to arrest the economic decline from higher energy prices and make progress toward net-zero goals. Compared to other sources of energy, nuclear power is relatively safe — the number of deaths per terawatt hour produced is comparable to wind and solar energy. These are encouraging steps toward getting the West off of Russian energy and helping consumers weather the tough times ahead.

☆ James Freeman — Assistant editor, editorial page at The Wall Street Journal
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( James Freeman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

James FreemanJames Freeman is assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and author of the weekday Best of the Web column. He is the co-author of "Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi," recognized as a New York Times Editors' Choice and a Financial Times Business Book of the Month. He is a contributor to the Fox News Channel and a host of "Deep Dive" on Fox Nation. Before joining the Journal in September 2007, James served as investor advocate at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he encouraged the transformation of financial reporting technology to benefit individual investors. Follow James on Twitter @FreemanWSJ

☆ How crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried survived the market wreckage and still expanded his empire
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Kate Rooney | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

FTX also extended $500 million to struggling Voyager Digital, which later declared bankruptcy, and was in discussions to acquire South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. While Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency exchange FTX is suffering from the downturn in digital assets, he said market share growth helped offset the pain. FTX Trading Ltd. is headquartered in Antigua, with FTX Derivatives Markets based in the Bahamas, where Bankman-Fried lives. FTX Trading has acquired companies in Switzerland, Australia, Cyprus, Germany, Gibraltar, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. watch nowLike Buffett, Bankman-Fried signed the Giving Pledge: a promise by the world's wealthiest individuals to donate the majority of their wealth to charity.

The German government bought a 30% stake for 15 billion euros amid Europe's energy crisis. But the company just spent six figures sponsoring a lavish gala dinner at a "stunning" Milan villa. Germany's largest gas importer Uniper sponsored a luxury gala dinner despite a 15-billion euro bailout –around $15 billion – from its government in the midst of the energy crisis. The company, which reported a net less of 12 billion euros in the first half of 2022, has already requested a further 4 billion euros from the government. According to a now-deleted LinkedIn post from the event's account, seen by Insider, Uniper CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach personally greeted attendees at the start of the gala dinner.

☆ Airline unions urge carriers not to resume buybacks when bailout ban ends this fall
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-18 | by ( Leslie Josephs | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

A United Airlines flight crew walks through the terminal at San Francisco International Airport on April 12, 2020 in San Francisco, California. Labor unions don't want them to spend it on stock buybacks. A condition of the $54 billion in federal aid that airlines received to pay workers during the Covid pandemic prohibited carriers from share buybacks. Many of the workers represented by the unions advocating against a resumption of buybacks are in contract negotiations with their carriers. She estimated that the earliest that airlines would resume would be mid-2023, with Alaska Airlines and Southwest the most likely candidates among U.S. carriers.

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