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German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the Greek crisis shows the euro region should consider creating an organization with powers similar to the International Monetary Fund.

“For the internal stability of the euro zone, we need an institution that has the powers and know-how of the IMF,” he said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag published today. “We shouldn’t rule anything out, including the creation of a European Monetary Fund.”

The financial turmoil sparked by Greece’s budget shortfall has highlighted the absence of a single euro-region finance ministry that could tackle the default of a member state or force a country to cut its deficit before it got out of hand. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said in an interview yesterday that the lack of political union to back up the European Central Bank is a “structural crack.”

Billionaire investor George Soros said Feb. 22 the common currency could disintegrate if the European Union doesn’t act.

“I support a stronger coordination of economic policy in the EU and the euro region,” said Schaeuble, who will publish his own proposals “soon.” He doesn’t support any IMF rescue package for Greece because that “would be an admission that the euro region can’t solve its own problems by itself.”

Euro ‘Football’

Schaeuble, who also said the euro shouldn’t become a “football” for speculators, said that any new organization wouldn’t compete with the IMF. His comments were confirmed by Finance Ministry spokesman Michael Offer.

The comments come after proposals for a European Monetary Fund were put forward last month by Deutsche Bank AG Chief Economist Thomas Mayer and Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. Countries could draw on funds equivalent to the money deposited at the EMF and exceed that amount if they agreed to a “tailor-made adjustment program” supervised by the European Commission and governments, they said.

The EMF could also ease the disruption caused by the default of a member state by offering investors new EMF bonds in exchange for the defaulted bonds, they said. Bond holders would be required to take a “haircut.”

“Setting up a European Monetary Fund is superior to the option of either calling in the IMF or muddling through on the basis of ad hoc interventions,” Mayer and Gros wrote in an article in the Economist.

The lack of a unified fiscal policy has sparked a divergence of bond yields across the euro region as Greece’s crisis worsened. The extra yield investors demand to hold Greek 10-year debt instead of German equivalents jumped to 396 basis points in January, the highest since 1998. The average gap over the past decade was 34 basis points. The Spanish and Portuguese spreads are about five times their respective 10-year averages.

Greece managed to sell 5 billion euros ($6.8 billion) in government bonds this past week after announcing a new round of austerity measures.

“I have no doubt that Greece will execute its announced measures,” Schaeuble said. “Their current efforts deserve big respect.”

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the use of credit default swaps to destabilize a country is “counterproductive,” and added the central bank is reviewing the arrangements of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other companies with Greece.

“We are looking into a number of questions related to Goldman Sachs and other companies and their derivatives arrangements with Greece,” Bernanke said today in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington.

Greek bonds slid today, pushing the premium investors demand to hold the nation’s 10-year securities instead of German bunds to the most in more than two weeks, amid concern the country’s credit ratings may be cut.

Federal Reserve officials are using new supervisory powers over firms such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to gather information on financial system risks. Bernanke was responding to a question from Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, who asked if there should be limits on the use of credit default swaps to prevent “runs against governments.”

Destabilize

“Obviously, using these instruments in a way that intentionally destabilizes a company or a country is — is counterproductive, and I’m sure the SEC will be looking into that,” Bernanke said. “We’ll certainly be evaluating what we can learn from the activities of the holding companies.”

U.S. stocks fell today in part as Moody’s Investors Service said it may downgrade Greek debt. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 1.52 percent at 10:51 a.m. in New York. Yields on U.S. 2-year notes declined 0.03 percentage point to 0.828 percent.

Goldman Sachs helped Greek officials raise $1 billion of off-balance-sheet funding in 2002 through swaps, which European Union regulators said they knew nothing about until recent days.

Goldman Sachs did “nothing inappropriate” when it arranged currency swaps for Greece that reduced the nation’s national debt by 2.37 billion euros ($3.2 billion), a top executive said.

“They did produce a rather small, but nevertheless not insignificant reduction, in Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio,” Gerald Corrigan, chairman of Goldman Sachs’s regulated bank subsidiary, told a panel of U cash advance payday loan.K. lawmakers Feb. 22. The swaps were “in conformity with existing rules and procedures.”

“As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on legal or regulatory matters,” Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, said today.

Credit Ratings

Corrigan is the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Federal Reserve gained oversight powers over Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley following their conversion to bank holding companies in Sept. 2008.

Yields on two-year Greek bonds rose to the highest since Feb. 9 after Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s said they may cut their ratings if Greece fails to implement a plan to reduce its budget deficit. Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s, said a downgrade may come by the end of March.

“Greece is able to make headlines every day, and for now volatility is here to stay,” said Michiel de Bruin, who helps manage $28 billion of assets as head of euro government bonds at F&C Investments in Amsterdam. “The market is also taking into account the possibility of a double dip in economic growth, and that’s causing risk aversion.”

The cost of insuring against default on Greek government bonds rose for a fourth day, with the credit-default swaps on the debt rising 10 basis points to 392, the highest in more than two weeks, according to CMA DataVision.

The Greek 10-year bond increased 12 basis points to 6.64 percent as of 3:02 p.m. in London. The 6 percent security maturing July 20109 lost 0.82, or 8.2 euros per 1,000-euro face amount, to 95.56. The two-year yield jumped 61 basis points, the most since Jan. 29, to 6.35 percent.

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Microsoft and Yahoo said Thursday that their online search deal has received approval from U.S. and European Union regulators, paving the way for the two companies to combine much of their Internet search business.

Under the 10-year deal, which was announced in July, Yahoo.com and Bing.com will maintain their own branding but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing." Yahoo, in turn, will be responsible for getting premium advertisers.

Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo’s sites. Microsoft will also have the rights to integrate Yahoo’s search technology into its own existing Web search platforms.

With the final hurdle out of the way, the companies said Thursday that they will start implementing their partnership in the coming days. Yahoo and Microsoft have set a goal to complete all aspects of the deal in the United States by the end of 2010 and globally by the end of 2012. The companies previously said that U.S. users will start to see the change three months after regulators approved the deal.

"This breakthrough search alliance means Yahoo! can focus even more on our own innovative search experience," said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz in a statement.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called the regulatory approval "an exciting milestone," noting that the companies are "just at the beginning of this process."

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) remains the clear dominant search engine, controlling more than 65% of the market, according to online data tracker comScore. But Microsoft’s (MSFT, Fortune 500) Bing and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) control nearly 30% of the market combined, which analysts say will help the companies attract better advertising partners.

Shares of Microsoft and Yahoo both rose less than 1% in midday trading. 

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The Federal Reserve Board raised the discount rate charged to banks for direct loans by a quarter point to 0.75 percent and said the move will encourage financial institutions to rely more on money markets rather than the central bank for short-term liquidity needs.

“These changes are intended as a further normalization of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities,” the central bank said today in a statement. “The modifications are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and do not signal any change in the outlook for the economy or for monetary policy.”

The dollar jumped and Treasuries extended losses as the Fed took another step in a gradual retreat from its unprecedented actions to halt the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The Fed has provided hundreds of billions of dollars in backstop credit to banks, bond dealers, commercial paper borrowers and troubled financial institutions such as American International Group Inc.

“This is an unwinding of another unusual and exigent circumstance,” said David Zervos, visiting adviser to the Fed Board in 2009 who is now a managing director at Jeffries & Co. in New York. “They tried to go out of their way to tell people this doesn’t change their policy outlook at all.”

The dollar rose 0.7 percent to $1.3514 per euro at 5:19 p.m. in New York from $1.3607 yesterday. It touched $1.3502, the strongest level since May. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose seven basis points to 3.8 percent.

Maturity Shortened

The discount rate increase is effective on Feb. 19. The Board also said that effective March 18 “the typical maximum maturity for primary credit loans will be shortened to overnight.”

The Fed Board said the outlook for policy remains “about as it was at the January meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.” The central bank also cited last month’s statement, which said economic conditions are likely to warrant “exceptionally low” levels of the federal funds rate “for an extended period.”

It was the first increase in the discount rate in more than three years, and the move widens the rate’s spread over the top range for the benchmark federal funds rate to 0.5 percentage point.

Backup Source

“The increase in the spread and reduction in maximum maturity will encourage depository institutions to rely on private funding markets for short-term credit and to use the Federal Reserve’s primary credit facility only as a backup source of funds,” the Fed Board said in a statement.

“The Federal Reserve will assess over time whether further increases in the spread are appropriate.”

Financial institutions’ reliance on Fed credit has waned as market liquidity improved. Discount window loans stood at $14.1 billion on Feb. 17, down from $65.1 billion about a year earlier.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke telegraphed the move in Feb. 10 testimony to Congress when he said investors should expect a “modest increase” in the rate “before long.” Using language similar to today’s statement, he said a move shouldn’t be interpreted as a change in policy.

The Fed’s lending programs and their May 2009 review of the capital needs of the 19 largest banks helped restore confidence and liquidity in interbank lending markets. The TED spread, the difference between what the Treasury and banks pay to borrow dollars for three months, has narrowed to 0.15 percentage point from as high as 4.64 percentage points in October 2008.

Emergency Facilities

The central bank closed four emergency lending facilities, including the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and Term Securities Lending Facility, on Feb. 1.

Primary dealer credit stood at $146.5 billion two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008. The facility had a zero balance when the Fed closed it in February.

The Federal Open Market Committee left the benchmark overnight lending rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent at their meeting Jan. 27. Minutes from the meeting said officials “agreed it would soon be appropriate” to reduce the term of discount window loans to overnight and widen the spread over the federal funds rate.

The minutes also said that the discount window change didn’t signal an immediate change in the benchmark lending rate.

Normal Footing

Fed officials “generally agreed that such steps to return the Federal Reserve’s liquidity provision to a normal footing would be technical adjustments.”

Prior to the financial crisis, the Fed kept the primary credit discount rate 1 percentage point above the target for the federal funds rate.

The Fed increased the term on the loans to 90 days during market turmoil in March 2008, and reduced it 28 days on Jan. 14 this year.

Discount rate changes are requested by boards of directors at the 12 regional Fed banks. The Fed Board said it approved requests for the rate increase from all 12 regional Fed banks. Discount rate change requests are subject to final review and determination by the Board of Governors in Washington. Fed governors review discount rate requests about every two weeks.

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The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Friday unanimously approved three capital projects at UW-Milwaukee, including the purchase and redevelopment of Columbia St. Mary's Hospital to allow for expansion of the land-locked east side campus.

The capital projects are part of a broader initiative to support the institution’s research activities and to reinforce its impact as an economic driver in the state.

The approved projects include:

• The first phase of the Kenwood Integrated Research Complex;
• The purchase and redevelopment of Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital; and
• Replacement of the Neeskay research vessel.

Regent president Chuck Pruitt told the Board that UW-Milwaukee’s Research Growth Initiative is a central pillar to the UW System’s efforts to boost educational output and stimulate job creation, as advocated in its Growth Agenda for Wisconsin.

“These capital investments will ensure that we have the facilities needed to enhance the university’s impact as an economic driver for Milwaukee and all of Wisconsin,” Pruitt said in a press release from the UW-System.

In his presentation before the board, UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago told Regents that the projects represent the future not only of the university, but of the city, region and state cash advance payday loans.

“We’re moving the pendulum to a more balanced perspective for a research university. We have not taken money from the fine arts or from the humanities to do this. We are providing opportunities with new dollars for the faculty, and new faculty in particular, to avail themselves of the opportunities that Milwaukee provides. That is really what this is all about,” Santiago said.

To use a flexible pool of funds provided by Gov. Doyle and the state Legislature in the 2009-11 Biennial Budget, the Regents were required to approve a detailed expenditure plan for the UW-Milwaukee Initiative, identifying specific projects and sources of funding. The Board had previously approved UW-Milwaukee’s plans to build a new facility for the School of Freshwater Sciences Research at its meeting in December.

Senior vice president Tom Anderes told the Board that, with the approval of the three projects on Friday, $176 million of the UW-Milwaukee Initiative’s $240 million in funding, including all of the taxpayer-supported borrowing, will have been committed. That leaves $64 million of approved funding capacity for future projects, including $25.6 million in program revenue supported borrowing and $38.4 million in gifts/grants.

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As President Barack Obama said in his recent jobs summit, future jobs will be found in cultivating alternative energy sources to create a cleaner environment. According to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, efforts to rein in Missouri’s carbon emissions have the potential to generate more than 22,000 manufacturing jobs in wind, solar, geothermal and biomass industries.

In addition to job creation, carbon reduction and energy savings are among the key reasons green training is important.

The potential for new jobs in Missouri spurred the IBEW/NECA Electrical Industry Training Center to consolidate 70 courses into one comprehensive green curriculum to keep pace with rapidly changing technology that includes greater understanding of energy-conversion rates of solar panels. Traditional solar cells are comprised of crystalline silicon, which has a relatively poor light absorption rate, requiring considerable thickness just to harness 11 percent to 16 percent of the sun’s rays. With silicon accounting for half the cost of a solar cell panel, we are now training on "thin film" technology installment payday loans. "Thin film" panels are less expensive, easier to install, more durable and have the potential to capture up to 35 percent of the sun’s rays.

Another part of green training is the study of advances in geothermal energy, which taps the steady flow of heat from the Earth in winter and displaces heat in the summer. This advanced training is applied to geothermal pump installations that can reduce utility costs up to 70 percent, compared with conventional systems.

Also key is understanding the dynamics of energy transfer in wind turbines, which convert the wind’s kinetic energy into electricity for homes and businesses.

The next phase of green training will be smart grid technology. It will produce a network among electric utilities to distribute power more efficiently while modifying consumer use to control energy costs.

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China and other faster growing developing nations may lure more funds away from advanced economies for the next two decades, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Those flows will counter any impact on China’s capital markets from government measures aimed at curbing asset bubbles, said Thomas Deng, Goldman Sachs’ head of China strategy. Corporate profit growth in China, estimated at between 20 percent and 30 percent on average next year, will fuel an equity market rally, said Deng. He recommended buying shares in China’s auto and healthcare industries, and companies with large land reserves in Shanghai ahead of next year’s World Expo.

“Western countries’ money is moving to oriental countries, and that means developed world money is flowing into developing countries,” Deng told reporters in Hong Kong yesterday. “This will be a trend in the next 10 to 20 years.”

Developing economies will expand 5.1 percent in 2010 compared with 1.3 percent growth in advanced nations, according to the International Monetary Fund. Asia-excluding-Japan equity funds posted net inflows of $975 million in the week ended Nov. 25, bringing the total for the year to $18 billion, EPFR Global said on Dec. 1. Flows into China equity funds reached a year-to- date high of $827 million, according to EPFR, which tracks funds holding $10 trillion worldwide.

China Index Forecasts

Goldman Sachs forecasts Hong Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprises Index will reach 17,000 by the end of next year, according to Deng. That’s higher than his previous forecast of 16,800 in an Oct. 29 report and the gauge’s closing level yesterday of 13,341.17.

China’s CSI 300 Index will hit 4,300 by the end of 2010, Deng said. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index will climb to about 27,000 next year, Timothy Moe, an analyst at the brokerage, said at the same media briefing. The CSI 300 closed at 3,957.33 and the Hang Seng at 22,289.57 yesterday.

An unprecedented $1.3 trillion of loans this year and a $586 billion stimulus package pushed China’s economy to record 8.9 percent growth in the third quarter, the fastest expansion in a year. The credit boom helped the Shanghai Composite Index rally 80 percent this year and Hong Kong’s H-share index surge 69 percent. Home prices in 70 major cities in China climbed at the fastest pace in 14 months in October, the government reported Nov. 10.

Real estate in China is “slightly expensive, but not a bubble,” Deng said. The nation needs a gradual exit strategy to prevent a bubble, he said.

Bubble Concerns

China is among the emerging markets facing risks of property and commodity market bubbles, central bank adviser Fan Gang said Nov. 18, echoing the World Bank, which said last month that the nation needs to tackle the “misallocation of resources.” China’s five largest banks have submitted plans to regulators for raising money after record lending eroded their capital, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

China’s economy will expand 9 percent this year and 11 percent in 2010, mainly driven by domestic demand and will translate into corporate earnings, Deng said.

Investors should also favor companies that will sell shares in Shanghai for the first time next year, Deng said yesterday. China Mobile Ltd., Cnooc Ltd. and China Resources Enterprise Ltd. were named as examples of companies that would likely perform well in Hong Kong ahead of their mainland listings, Deng wrote in his Oct. 29 report.

“Liquidity is favorable to Chinese shares, particularly the Hong Kong-listed Chinese shares,” the analyst said.

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Nordstrom Inc. marked Black Friday with an announcement that it will open an Nordstrom Rack at Arrowhead Crossing shopping center in Peoria.

The 36,000-square-foot store is expected to open next fall and will be the third in the Phoenix area, the retailer (NYSE:JWN) said. Nordstrom Rack is the Seattle firm’s off-price retail division and carries merchandise from Nordstrom department stores and Nordstrom payday loan no fax no credit check.com at steep discounts.

Other retailers at Arrowhead Crossing that include DSW, TJ Maxx, Barnes & Noble and ULTA. Developers Diversified Realty (NYSE:DDR) owns and manages Arrowhead Crossing.

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Tom Downey is stepping down as president of the Children’s Museum of Denver to take the helm at Venoco Inc. CEO Timothy Marquez’s charitable foundation.

Mike Yankovich, currently the Children’s Museum’s COO, has been appointed by the museum board as interim president, effective immediately, the museum announced late Friday. He has been with the museum since 2003.

The museum features interactive exhibits and activities for young children. Downey, who has been its president since 2005, is leaving to become president of the Timothy & Bernadette Marquez Foundation, which supports health care and education programs in Denver; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in southern California.

Timothy Marquez founded and heads Venoco, a Denver-based oil and gas company (NYSE: VQ). He and his wife also founded and provided initial funding for the Denver Scholarship Foundation, which supports the city’s college-bound students.

Previously, Yankovich was the Children’s Museum’s VP of guest experience and director of education.

"The board was unanimous in selecting Yankovich as the interim president and is excited to have him at the helm during this period of transition," Deborah Wapensky, CFO of Vectra Bank Colorado and chair of the Children’s Museum’s board of directors, said in a statement.

Downey will continue at the Children’s Museum in a "transitional role" until Dec. 15, the museum said.

"I have been incredibly honored to have served with a team as motivated, well-tenured and experienced as the staff at the Children’s Museum," Downey said in a statement released by the museum. "While I will miss the team greatly, I could not pass up the opportunity offered by Tim and Bernie Marquez to support an array of nonprofits pursuing improved education and health for the community."

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Japan’s trade minister disclosed market sensitive third-quarter GDP figures to oil industry executives on Monday ahead of its official release, a source within the ministry said, in an embarrassment for a government that took power two months ago.

The much-stronger-than-expected third-quarter growth figures caused Japanese bond prices to dip after the official release by the Cabinet Office at 8:50 a.m. (2350 GMT), although they later recovered as analysts warned the outlook was less rosy.

Masayuki Naoshima, the head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, mentioned GDP data in a speech in a meeting with the industry leaders ahead of the release time, the source, who attended the meeting, told Reuters.

Kyodo News reported that the minister had made a mistake.

“I did not know about the embargo time,” Kyodo quoted Naoshima as telling reporters.

An official at Naoshima’s office told Reuters on the phone that they are trying to confirm what was said.

Japan’s economy grew 1.2 percent in the third quarter, its fastest pace in more than two years as stimulus lifted consumer spending and capital spending bottomed out.

(Reporting by Sumio Ito; Writing by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

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