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Globe and Mail Update The year-old credit crunch has become a full-scale financial crisis that this week alone has seen the collapse of a major Wall Street investment bank, the sale of another and a move by the U.S. Federal Reserve to bail out a private insurer to the tune of $85-billion (U.S.). Four Report on Business reporters explain what's behind the global shockwaves. Why are credit markets frozen, and why won't banks lend to each other? Credit markets have dried up because lenders fear they won't be paid back. Fear of the unknown has caused banks and other institutions to hoard their money. Worry that more financial institutions will fail has made banks reluctant to lend to one another, exacerbating the situation and raising the chance that another bank will find itself without enough funds. It's unclear to what extent individual financial institutions are exposed to the toxic assets that caused the crisis. For that reason, they are only willing to lend t...

Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926 in New York City) is an American economist and was from 1987 to 2006 the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States. He currently works as a private advisor, making speeches and providing consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. First appointed Fed chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006 after the second-longest tenure in the position. He was lauded for his handling of the Black Monday October 19, 1987 stock market crash, which occurred very shortly after he first became chairman, as well as for his stewardship of the Internet-driven, "dot-com" economic boom of the 1990s. This expansion eventually ended in a burst in March 2000 leading to an economic downturn, including negative GDP growth in the first quarter of 2001.[1] After 2001, some congressional leaders and others criticized him, for certain statemen...

The following article was published in the Banker Middle East September 2003 edition. Several years ago, a teacher of mine was invited to Kuwait to provide a consulting service of sorts to the executive committee of a large Islamic financial institution. On an early fact-finding tour he encountered the institution's senior Shari`ah scholar, an elderly man who was partly deaf, paralysed on one side, and who had little experience of modern banking and finance. The local bankers portrayed this man as a venerated Shari`ah scholar, but my teacher immediately recognised him as a rubber stamper - shamefully empowered by his employers when he should have been enjoying a quiet retirement. To understand how this situation came to pass, we need only delve into the recent past. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, a small number of international Islamic banking and finance organisations came to prominence. Understandably, they were characterised by a narrow product range and in some cases a ...

ABOUT THE BOOK The Problem With Interest is now in its second edition. Since the publication of the first edition in 1997, the book has been revised with new information and ideas, and continues to provide a practical commentary on the extent to which usury is now affecting humanity. Technically detailed but highly readable, it provides a genuine alternative to the conventional understanding of financial economics that appears in much of the media and mainstream academia. Tarek El Diwany was born in London in 1963. He graduated in Accounting and Finance from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom in 1985. Tarek has worked as an interest rate derivatives dealer in the government bond market, and as head of Islamic finance for a major financial institution based in London. In 1997, he completed the first edition of The Problem With Interest, and in the same year launched www.islamic-finance.com , where he is now the Editor. In addition to his work as a writer, Tarek is a partner at Z...

By MICHAEL WINERIP Published: November 5, 2008 HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times THE WAIT Jonathan Gordon married Adrianna Rojas in March. WAR can focus people, fast. Last New Year’s Eve, Adrianna Rojas, 17, a high school senior, learned that her boyfriend, Jonathan Gordon, 20, who pumped gas at the Citgo here on Route 57, was going to be shipped to Iraq with the New Jersey National Guard. Right there, on the spot, she proposed to him. “I said, ‘We’re getting married,’ ” she recalled. “He said, ‘You know, I’d marry you in a heartbeat.’ ” But he’d been drinking, and the next morning he told her, “Ade, I have to think it over.” She gave him a month; she was graduating from high school a half year early and told him she needed his answer by then. In the weeks that followed she tried not to bother him about it, but then she finished up at Hackettstown High, February arrived, and still no answer. “I said I have to know. He said he wanted to wait until he could get a ri...

WASHINGTON — Two weeks ago, senior Bush administration officials gathered in secret with Afghanistan experts from NATO and the United Nations at an exclusive Washington club a few blocks from the White House. The group was there to deliver a grim message: the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse. Their audience: advisers from the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama . Over two days, according to participants in the discussions, the experts laid bare Afghanistan’s most pressing issues. They sought to make clear that the next president needed to have a plan for Afghanistan before he took office on Jan. 20. Otherwise, they said, it could be too late. With American casualties on the rise and Taliban militias gaining new strength, experts on Afghanistan say the next president will need to decide swiftly if he intends to send more troops there, because even after deployment orders are issued, it could take weeks or months for American forces to arrive. The next pr...

A visitor looked at the artwork 'Bowl with Eggs' by Jeff Koons at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Eleven huge sculptures of Koon's cycle 'Celebration' can be seen during Berlin's exhibition series 'Cult of the Artist' at Neue Nationalgalerie from Oct. 31 to Feb. 8. Photo: Alina Novopashina/European Pressphoto Agency

(These comments are taken from "have your say" from BBC news site) A glimpse of views of rest of the world about this financial crisis. some time one can understand the most complicated issue lie hidden between the line.......... So many thanks to BBC who start this service....... When I thnink my great great grand father come to America on a 18th century Boat across Europe a trip that took around 2 months as my great great mother give her own live on that boat with only money for about six month my great great grand father had not only to find work fast but also take care of his 4 children. I am one of the few who graduated from University,major in Accounting & what I have learn sicken me to my stomach as I found out how working individual works to enrich dividen lovers. Marco Lavoie , Edmonton, Canada

The CEO of Ex Great Giant Lehmann Brother.

By BERNIE BECKER and BEN WHITE Published: October 6, 2008 WASHINGTON — Richard S. Fuld Jr. blamed the news media. He blamed the short-sellers. He blamed the government, as well as what he characterized as an “extraordinary run on the bank.” The chief of the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld Jr ., told irate members of Congress that all his decisions “were both prudent and appropriate” given the information he had at the time.But the chief executive of Lehman Brothers Holdings, the bankrupt remnant of a once-great investment house, never really blamed himself. Instead, in his first public appearance since Lehman’s collapse, Mr. Fuld said in sworn testimony before a Congressional panel on Monday that while he took full responsibility for the debacle, he believed all his decisions “were both prudent and appropriate” given the information he had at the time. That stance did not sit well with angry members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who peppered...