Real Word Bank - Banking News and Articles
  World Bank Banking News and Articles | Contact
Latest Banking News and Articles


Once Again, Oil Prices Cause World Anxiety

It is common wisdom that the oil price "shocks" of the 1970s were disastrous for the world economy. After each of the two main price increases--in 1974 and 1979--inflation climbed, the world sank into recession and international financiers and officials worried about strains in the world's banking and trade system.Now, with the breakdown of last weekend's meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

One by one, the leaders of the world's poorest nations took their places behind the podium last week. And one by one, they warned the world of the coming disaster.Aana Enin, leader of the delegation from Ghana, came barefoot, as is the custom in her country."Whereas we needed to sell one ton of cocoa to purchase a tractor some time ago, we now have to sell 10 tons of cocoa," Enin said. "Our people are crying for relief."

Q. Who was Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy? - P.M., Arlington. A. Robert S. McNamara, one of the "Whiz Kids" at Ford Motor Co., who became president of the company, then was tapped by Kennedy as his Secretary of Defense. He continued under President Lyndon Johnson until he left the department to become president of the World Bank.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Jacques de Larosiere said yesterday that the compromise agreement on IMF lending limits reached at 1:20 a.m. Monday would allow the IMF to continue on "a firm basis," and encourage commercial banks to maintain their activities in the Third World.After a day-long deadlock on Sunday, the IMF's Interim Committee agreed to a two-tiered limitation on access by borrowing nations to IMF funds--either 102 percen.

NOT TOO MANY years ago, economists wrote books about money, and other people wrote books about banks. The division of labor was particularly sharp in international matters. Economists wrote about the monetary system--the more or less formal arrangements that define the rights and duties of governments and thus regulate relations among them and among their currencies. Others wrote about equally mysterious but more entertaining matters--the bankers, sheiks, and other exotic inhabitants.

The immediate financial crisis of the two largest Third World debtors - Mexico and Brazil - was resolved last week when the international banking system agreed to hand over a record-breaking $9.5 billion in new credits. Even as the temporary bail-outs go into effect, however, the downward fluctuations in the price of crude oil promises to create the need for more emergency financings on behalf of developing nations. Already Indonesia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Nigeria.

Financier Jake Butcher, stung by the failure of United American Bank of Knoxville, will sell his three remaining banks and cut his ties with the business that made him a millionaire, a spokesman said yesterday."He's definitely out of banking and he will never return," said Wendell Potter, a spokesman for Butcher, who rose from pushing a broom at his father's general store to reigning over a billion-dollar banking empire.

The Israeli government, in a new sign of its unwillingness to halt Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank, is preparing an expensive advertising and promotion campaign to encourage its citizens to move to the expanding development towns in the occupied territory.The campaign, which will feature radio, television and newspaper advertisements and what will amount to a government-run house and apartment locator service for the West Bank, is being directed by the Ministry of Labor.

Keith E. Bailey, 59, a retired Navy commander and the manager of the money center operations department of the National Savings & Trust Bank until earlier this year, died at his home in Arlington Nov. 17 following a heart attack.Cmdr. Bailey was born in Winfield, Kan., and attended Southwestern College there. During World War II, he went into the Navy and became a pilot. Later, he attended the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, Calif.

Roman Catholic Church officials reported that Chilean police arrested two Irish priests and put them on an airplane bound for Argentina, three days before the expiration of a government order for them to leave the country.No action had been taken against a third priest, the Rev. Brian MacMahon of Australia, who also has been ordered to leave because of allegations of opposition political activity. The government revoked the priests' residency visas last week.

The failure of the United American Bank of Knoxville is under investigation by a congressional subcommittee to see if negligence by federal regulatory agencies contributed to the bank's collapse.Rep. Doug Barnard (D., Ga.), chairman of the Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs subcommittee, also has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the bank and its president, World's Fair financier Jake Butcher.

The spiritual leader of Jerusalem's Muslims issued a startling edict one morning last week: Any Palestinian who assassinated President Hafez Assad of Syria would be granted divine martyrdom and a place in paradise.Sheik Saadeddin Alami, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, had crystallized a sense of desperation and indignation felt by many of the West Bank's 850,000 Palestinians.

A funeral Mass was said Friday for Albert F. Ryder, 65, of East Boston, a retired clerk of the US Post Office in Post Office Square, who died of a heart ailment Monday at the Winthrop Community Hospital. He retired in 1977 after 32 years service. Mr. Ryder was born and educated in Cambridge. He served in the Army at the old Fort Banks, Winthrop, during World War II. He was a member of the Disabled American Veterans, National Post.

When asked what issue worries them most these days, many economists answer: "The MBA problem."They are not referring to a proliferation of overpayed business school graduates, but to the giant Mexico-Brazil- Argentina foreign debt.The developing world's three largest debtors together owe Western banks and international institutions about $205 billion.

The brave new world of banking will come about in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary way, and it will be characterized by a greater concentration of financial power in fewer hands.That was the central theme of a four-hour national teleconference brought to 40 cities last week with the help of video equipment and sponsored by the national accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co. and the Bank Administration Institute.

The proposed Interstate Bank of Oklahoma in Leadership Square at N Robinson and W Park has won preliminary approval from the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, and will open for business in 18 months when the first Leadership building is ready for occupancy.The new bank would be the fifth in the central downtown area.The approval is evidence of a continuing liberal policy on the part of the comptroller to let new banks open, even at a time when competition in the financial world.

As a public service, since you'll likely read it nowhere else, MetroScene herewith provides a list of the ceremonial resolutions approved one week ago today by the D.C. City Council (with the resolution titles shortened to save space): The 25th Anniversary of the Benning-Ridge Civic Association; the Washington Area Fuel Fund Recognition; Honoring Ms. Doris DeBoe on Her Selection for a Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching; Honoring Ms. Katie Walker on Her Selection.

President Reagan warned yesterday that the world could face "an economic nightmare" if Congress rejected an $8.4 billion lending increase to the International Monetary Fund to help heavily indebted developing nations.Reagan used a gathering of the world's economic and financial leaders as a forum to pressure Congress - in unusually strong language - to pass a politically unpopular bill that would increase the U. S. contribution to the 146-nation IMF.

A Bell Jet Ranger swoops out of the sky and hovers over the bank building. A hand reaches out of the dangling helicopter and grabs a pouch from a man standing on the roof. Without landing, the helicopter arcs into the sky and is gone.A new James Bond movie being filmed? A daring bank heist? No, just another routine transaction in the stuffy world of banking.

United American Bank of Knoxville, declared insolvent in the fourth-largest commercial bank failure in U.S. history, reopened Tuesday as part of First Tennessee National Corp. of Memphis.Federal regulators on Monday let First Tennessee, the state's biggest bank-holding company, acquire UAB-Knoxville hours after the state's banking commissioner declared it insolvent because of multimillion-dollar loan losses. UAB-Knoxville was the flagship of the five-bank.

Related Articles

1977-A

Newsnipits