Source: Wikipedia

Soros is estimated currently^[update] to be worth around $11.0 billion in net worth; he is ranked by Forbes as the 29th-richest person in the United States and has given away $6 billion to charities and his favorite causes since 1979.^[1]

Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also one of three initial funders of Center for American Progress, and is represented on the board.^[4] His funding and organization of Georgia‘s Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been greatly exaggerated. In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush‘s bid for re-election in 2004. Continue reading →

Source: CNN Money.com

The government is bracing for a big bank failure.

A bill introduced in Congress would give the FDIC, the agency that stands behind Americans’ bank deposits, temporary authority to borrow as much as $500 billion from the government to shore up the deposit insurance fund.

The bill — the Depositor Protection Act of 2009, backed by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho — wouldn’t change the status of individual bank accounts, which through the end of this year are insured up to $250,000. Continue reading →

The link below identifies all the banks that the FDIC have listed as bankrupt, more banks will be added to this list in the near future. This list is updated as of September of last year (2008). As an incite, just because a bank gets a hand out from the government or a central bank, it does not mean that they are safe to bank in. In actuality, it is a message to investors that the bank is on its way down.

Click here for that link

Source: The Economic Times

A government rescue plan has eased investors’ concerns about Citigroup Inc, but mines lurking in the balance sheets of rivals Bank of America including Bank of America Corp could still tempt short-sellers.

Bank of America, the No 3 US bank by assets, has loaded up on mortgages as the world’s largest economy wrestles with the worst housing market since the Great Depression. Continue reading →

Source: International Herald Tribune

Kenneth Lewis gambled on bold acquisitions to build Bank of America into the nation’s largest bank.

But the need for fresh government support to grapple with the newly revealed losses at Merrill Lynch, the brokerage firm he snapped up in a rapid-fire arrangement at the height of the financial crisis in September, raises questions about whether the bank has gone a deal too far. Continue reading →