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


Perilous Time for Big Banks

MOST Americans have enough trouble coping with their own family finances to spend much time worrying about our national budgetary crisis, let alone the world debt situation.But the possibility of a global financial collapse is no longer unthinkable, and the debate on how to prevent it is heating up in all of the industrial nations.What has brought the world debt issue to a head is the decline in oil prices triggered by defections within OPEC, the oil exporting cartel

A year ago, the giant Amsterdam-Rotterdam Bank opened its first U.S. branch with a splash here. The ground-floor offices at 500 Park Ave. were swathed in 150 yards of scarlet ribbon. Five hundred silver helium balloons, inscribed Amro, were released."Just a little 'flourish' to attract attention," explained Johann H. Brinckmann, the bank's personable executive vice president and general manager.

PAUL VOLCKER'S second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is likely to be even more difficult than his first. While President Reagan is entitled to applause for good sense in offering the appointment, Mr. Volcker demonstrates real courage in accepting it.If he had left this spring, he would have been remembered as the central banker who brought inflation under control when a succession of presidents and Congresses had failed.

More than geography and language divide the 155 world political and financial leaders who gather today in Philadelphia for the small but prestigious fifth annual International Monetary and Trade Conference.Many of those who have come from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa for the conference share a view of the world's economic health that contrasts sharply with the "upbeat" expectations of U.S. business executives.

For decades, Mellon Bank has supplied the money to fire the steelmaking blast furnaces of the Monongahela Valley.As Pittsburgh's dominant bank, Mellon backed the growth of the steel industry, providing seed money for new companies, loaning money for their expansion, financing the homes and cars of their workers. In a town where might, strength and power count for a lot, Mellon Bank became one of the mightiest, strongest and most powerful entities.

George Banks, obsessed with racism and tormented by his own biracial heritage, is a paranoid psychotic who was legally insane, unable to judge right from wrong, when he killed 13 people in September, a defense psychiatrist testified at Banks' trial yesterday.Psychiatrist Anthony J. Turchetti said that Banks, 40, a former state prison guard, was "suffering from a severe, fixed, unshakeable persecutorial delusion system which was affecting his thoughts.

If the number of drop-in visitors is the criterion, surely the most popular federal agency in Washington yesterday was the Internal Revenue Service. From the time its local tax office at 1201 E St. NW opened until its closing last night, a constant line of people streamed in, seeking various forms and instruction booklets to help them meet tonight's filing deadline.The forms normally are available only on the eighth floor, but the building's three elevators.

Depression. More and more, the dreaded word enters the currency of sober discussion. Wall Street's "Dr. Doom," Henry Kaufman, puts the odds against a global collapse at only 6 to 1 or 7 to 1. Former presidential adviser Alan Greenspan sees it pretty much the same way, perhaps at 10 to 1 or 20 to 1, not the 1,000-to-1 bet against depression that these eminent forecasters would have made just a few years back.

The World Health Organization condemned Israel Thursday, expressing "great concern" over the mystery epidemic that involved hundreds of Palestinians on the West Bank of the Jordan River.The United Nations agency called for direct supervision of health services in all Israeli-occupied Arab land.

All food processors occasionally make mistakes that result in edible but non-salable food products. Many companies destroy their mistakes, but a growing number are using food banks to transform mistakes into food for the hungry.The development of a network of non-profit food banks is one of the most important steps taken in this nation to help ""waste'' food get in the stomachs of the people who need it most.

"WHY ME?"It's a question that Dortmunder, the hapless thief of Bank Shot and The Hot Rock, must have asked several times before as his best-laid plans for crime have gone awry.Now Dortmunder has a new reason to pose the question in Donald E. Westlake's Why Me? (Viking, $13.50).Dortmunder regards this botched-up caper as his "greatest triumph"--which, he concedes, turns out to be no more than going full circle.

On Dec. 12, 1963, after a long, bitter and bloody war against nationalist guerrillas called the Mau Mau, Britain turned the colony of Kenya over to its black majority. Today, 20 years after independence, the country is a multiracial model in black Africa.Blacks and whites mix for business, at the racetrack and around the swimming pool, although intermarriage is the exception rather than the rule. A rich agricultural area, once known as the White Highlands.

A modest improvement in the international economic climate this year and next is now expected by most government and private economists, in large part because the United States--still the most influential single economy in the world--has finally pulled out of its deep recession, and is almost certain to have a fairly vigorous recovery, at least through 1984.

The Intemperate Zone 2 is the best antidote in years to the know-nothing spirit now rampant in the higher reaches of the government. The author's aim is to define and defend the legitimate U.S. interests that touch the Third World. His "neo- realism," as he calls it, shares the traditional goals of U.S. foreign policy. He is for an "open and growing international economy."

The price of First National Bank of Boston common stock hit an all-time record high of 3978 this week on extraordinary trading volume of 553,400 shares, placing it on the New York Stock Exchange most active list for the first time in memory. The stock closed Monday at 3958 and did not budge yesterday on reduced trading volume of 20,500 shares. William L. Brown, chairman of the First National Boston Corp.

Horace B. McGuire of Weston, a manager of accounting, machines and computer sales in the Boston office of the NCR Corp. - formerly the National Cash Register Corp. - died in Faulkner Hospital Friday after a long illness. Mr. McGuire had suffered from respiratory problems. He was 76. He had worked for NCR 40 years before retiring in 1969. Born in Cincinnati, he was a graduate of Steele High School in Dayton, Ohio, and of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Class of 1929.

The Federal Reserve Board, seeking better control over the spread of non- banking companies into traditional bank business, yesterday formally adopted a broad new definition of just what makes a bank a bank.The definition apparently would be broad enough to bring under Federal Reserve jurisdiction many of the "non-bank banks" that outside companies have been buying in the last year.

The World Series comes to town tonight, and if that's not a reason for a party, what is?In bars and cabarets all over the area, people will be gathering around television screens big and small not only to watch the third game of the Series but to celebrate the fact that the home-town team has a shot at becoming the world champions.

President Reagan's failure so far to win congressional approval of an $8.5 billion increase in U. S. support for the International Monetary Fund casts a shadow over the lending agency's annual meeting next week.When leading financial officials from the fund's 146 member nations, including the major world industrial powers, convene Monday for five days of meetings with World Bank representatives, the outcome of the issue of U. S. support.

Polish officials and representatives of Western banks have agreed on terms to reschedule Poland's 1983 debt, including recycling the interest on the debt as trade credits, a communique released yesterday said.Few details were included in the communique, issued after two days of intensive, closed-door talks.Poland has $1.5 billion in principal and $1.1 billion in interest falling due this year.In a separate agreement.

Related Articles

1977-A

Newsnipits