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Of the 287 institutions receiving funds from America's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Citigroup heads the list at #1 with $45 billlion, ahead of AIG and General Motors (General Motors?), according to ProPublica: 1) Citigroup – $45 billion 2) AIG – $40 billion 3) JPMorgan Chase – $25 billion 4) Bank of America (incl. Merrill…

I can't get rid of all the holiday season frivolity without a timely reminder of what banking is all about: Thanks to Disney and Mary Poppins for cheering my family over the last two weeks and for this song in particular. I particularly love the bit towards the end where Dick Van Dyke – yes,…

A final posting for 2008 … and I thought it would be interesting to look at the major market indexes. Now you may find this depressing, but it's not. Let me show you what I mean: America’s Dow Jones industrial average dropped by over a third (33.84% to be exact), the biggest fall since 1931,…

A final posting for 2008 … and I thought it would be interesting to look at the major market indexes. Now you may find this depressing, but it's not. Let me show you what I mean: America’s Dow Jones industrial average dropped by over a third (33.84% to be exact), the biggest fall since 1931,…

Reading "Britain in 2009" by the Economic & Social Research Council pointed me to an interesting article entitled "Who plans for rainy days?" The article is from three researchers at the Universities of York and Bristol – David Abbott, Deborah Quilgars and Anwen Jones – who studied perceptions and attitudes towards money and financial planning…

For those of you who are in a Firewall with massive constraints on what you can and cannot access on the internet, I apologise if you cannot play these two videos, but they are worth watching. First, there's an interesting commentary from Chris Patten, the Conservative Politician and Former Governor of Hong Kong who oversaw…

There are loads of jokes about economists, with one of my favourites being: Question: What do you call a roomful of economists?Answer: A disagreement. Now I know I should be doing more interesting things during the holidays than talking about economics, but I just had lunch with a good friend where we ended up talking…

There are loads of jokes about economists, with one of my favourites being: Question: What do you call a roomful of economists?Answer: A disagreement. Now I know I should be doing more interesting things during the holidays than talking about economics, but I just had lunch with a good friend where we ended up talking…

There are loads of jokes about economists, with one of my favourites being: Question: What do you call a roomful of economists?Answer: A disagreement. Now I know I should be doing more interesting things during the holidays than talking about economics, but I just had lunch with a good friend where we ended up talking…