Boston, MA, United States (AHN Sports) – Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick doesn’t agree with Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas’s decision not to attend a meeting with President Obama at the White House.

President Obama welcomed the Bruins to Washington earlier this week to honor the Stanley Cup champions. Thomas chose not to attend saying he was protesting a federal government that had “grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people.”

Governor Patrick said Thomas was entitled to his views but said he was disappointed in his decision not to go to the White House on the “Ask the Governor” show on WTKK-FM.

“He’s a phenomenal hockey player and he’s entitled to his views, but it just feels to me like we’re losing in this country basic courtesy and grace,” Patrick said. “I didn’t think much of President Bush’s policies – two wars on a credit card, prescription drug benefit that we couldn’t afford, deficit out of control – but I always referred to him as ‘Mr. President.’ I stood when he came in the room,”

Thomas helped the Bruins win their first Stanley Cup in 39 years last season with a victory over the Vancouver Canucks in the finals.

View full post on All Stories

Naypyidaw, Myanmar (AHN) – Myanmar President Thein Sein on Wednesday celebrated the country’s Independence Day and used the occasion to give credit to the former junta and the army for the country’s recent political reforms.

Stressing the day’s significance, Sein said it was the “Tatmadaw” military that directed the nation towards building a peaceful, modern and developed democratic one. “The army took step-by-step measures for writing a constitution in order to practice multi-party democracy,” Sein said in a message read by Vice President Sai Mauk Kham.

The nominally-civilian president also praised the military for fighting several wars with numerous armed ethnic rebel groups, adding that the army would continue to remain Myanmar’s most essential pillar. “A Tatmadaw of international standard is required for national defense,” he said.

The speech was delivered in front of 3,000 ministers and civil servants gathered in the capital Naypyidaw.

Sein also criticized 1988′s student uprising, which brought alive Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy movement, charging that it ruined the country.

The government also released at least 30 prisoners and commuted sentences of many others. However the opposition and the United States described the move unsatisfactory.

Sein’s decree granted amnesty to prisoners for the country’s peace and stability and national consolidation, stated the state-run newspaper. The decree commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment, restricted the maximum sentence to 30 years for all, limited terms of 20-30 years to 20 years and cut shorter sentences by 25 percent.

View full post on All Stories

Paris, France (AHN) – Moody’s announced Friday it was downgrading the credit rating of all three of France’s top banks because of the difficulty they have borrowing money.

Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas went down one notch from a Aa2 rating to Aa3, which is the fourth-highest investment grade rating. Societe Generale fell from Aa3 to A1, the fifth-highest rating. The best rating a bank can get is AAA.

BNP is the largest bank, Societe Generale is second and Credit Agricole is third.

The credit rating agency also gave each of the three a negative outlook and warned that it might downgrade them again.

Moody’s said that not only had liquidity and funding conditions deteriorated at each of the banks, but that it was likely the situation would become worse because of further funding pressures from the European debt crisis, which has deteriorated.

The ratings cuts for these three banks follow Moody’s previous downgrades in September of Credit Agricole and Societe Generale.

Part of the problem with liquidity comes from the fact that many money market funds in the United States have refused to lend to European banks since the summer. That has made it difficult for eurozone banks to maintain borrowing in U.S. dollars.

The European Central Bank on Thursday announced new measures to make sure that eurozone banks do not run out of cash.

During the past few months, both BNP and Societe Generale announced asset sales aimed at reducing their reliance on short-term wholesale funding.

However, Moody’s cautioned that if too many European banks try to sell assets at the same time it would depress their value and result in selling them at a loss.

View full post on All Stories

United States (AHN) – 117 minutes

In theaters November 18, 2011

Rating: PG-13, Drama

Breaking Dawn never breaks down.

Instead, it holds up its end of the bargain for the Twilight series and its loyal fans, as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 surfaces as the first-half of a finale with a one-year intermission.

The romantic modern-day vampire drama that kicked off the big-screen series, Twilight (2008), cast quite a spell, which is why we’re now four movies in out of five.

The ponderous first sequel, The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), dipped slightly in impact, but not so much as to remove the wanna-see factor from the next sequel, the ultra-romantic, revenge-driven The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), which not only restored the glory of the original but presented the series’ strongest metaphor yet for teen angst and offered the most accomplished performances yet from the three principals.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, which will be followed in a year’s time by Part 2, is (taking a page from the Harry Potter series) the first half of the final book — a 2008 best-seller, massive at 754 pages — in the series of supernatural horror-romance novels for Young Adults by Stephenie Meyer.

Breaking Dawn finds human Bella and vampire Edward — played, as if you didn’t know, by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson — on their mixed-marriage honeymoon in Brazil, having postponed their decision to transform Bella into a vampire and thus join Edward’s extended, never-aging family.

Before long, Bella discovers that she’s pregnant. And the more Bella shows, the more emaciated she becomes, so concerned and desperate Edward turns to Bella’s rejected romantic suitor, Jacob, played again by Taylor Lautner, a werewolf who is estranged from his tribe.

Bella then experiences a nearly fatal childbirth when her half-vampire daughter Renesmee joins their family.

Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Kinsey, Gods and Monsters), who’s new to the series’ directorial chair and shot this and its successor back-to-back, tries to follow suit and fit in, aiming to please the series’ rabid fans, whom we’ve come to know as Twi-hards. And he delivers, inviting them as guests at the Bella-Edward nuptials and playing to their familiarity with the material with a surprising amount of unforced humor.

But once again, the film is let down by patently fake special effects, thus immediately undermining the overall illusion every single time that the wolves appear. And especially when they speak, which they should never do. If the level of CGI work isn’t improved by the time the next installment surfaces — one promising to contain more than its share of effects-heavy action sequences — the flight of this popular series could be in for one very bumpy landing.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, who has scripted all four of the Twilight films, sets the table for the series’ conclusion with a narrative that moves slowly and sometimes seems dramatically undercranked. To some degree, the level of urgency is diminished because of Breaking Dawn’s place in the series’ progression. That is, we know throughout that resolution will remain a long way off and that this is part of a connected and continuous double feature.

Still, the irresistibility of youthful passion remains the controlling metaphor of the series, as film number four takes its rightful place alongside its predecessors.

As for the three leads, they have certainly inhabited their roles long and often enough to make them feel lived-in, even if they sometimes seem to be ever so slightly on automatic pilot. Playing it safe in this way in a blockbuster series aimed at adoring fans may ultimately be the wise approach, but it also diminishes the film’s capacity for surprise and stimulation. But not to anywhere near a fatal degree.

And give Condon and Rosenberg credit for finding exactly the right place to end Part 1 and trigger the anticipation campaign for Part 2. This neat trick of releasing two halves of a story with the ending of the first part as a dynamic launching pad for the many-months-away second part is executed as slickly as it was in Kill Bill.

The penultimate PG-13-rated installment in an understandably and deservedly popular fantasy series, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is so well handled and ends so effectively, this should be a very tough wait and a very long year for Twi-hards.

View full post on All Stories

Berlin, Germany (AHN) – The Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, agreed on Thursday to increase the country’s guarantees on European Union loans to $284 billion (€211 billion) from $167 billion (€124 billion).

The 523 to 85 vote gave the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) power to purchase bonds in secondary markets, enable bank recapitalization and offer precautionary credit lines.

The Bundestag also approved the increase in the EFSF to $599 billion (€440 billion). The measure was approved because of the support of the Christian Democrats, Free Democrats, Social Democrats and Greens.

The approval of the hike represents a victory for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spent weeks campaigning for approval of the July 21 agreement by eurozone leaders. Germany holds the largest amount of Greek government bonds.

However, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble and Economics Minister Philipp Roster said any further increase was out of the question.

With the European Commission expecting the larger EFSF in place by mid-October, zone leaders are now focusing on how to prevent the region’s debt crisis from spreading further. One of the measures they are eyeing is the establishment of a permanent rescue fund that would provide more capital and tools to manage defaults.

However, the chairman of a private-equity firm said the newly approved bailout package would not be enough to solve the eurozone’s debt problems. He suggested that the amount should be in the trillion-euro level, not just billion.

Austria is expected to ratify the expanded rescue fund on Friday, while four other countries have yet to vote on it.

View full post on All Stories

Manama, Bahrain David Rosenberg (The Medi – King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa has chalked up some successes in the past weeks in his drive to steady his island country after the shocks of mass unrest and a violent crackdown, but analysts say business stands no chance of getting back to usual without deep political reforms.

The kingdom reported on Sunday that its economy grew by 1 percent quarter-on-quarter in April-June after shrinking in the previous three months during the peak of the turmoil. Two days earlier, Bahrain was awarded a slot in the global Formula One schedule in 2012, a boost for the country’s key tourism industry and a vote of confidence after this year’s race was canceled because of the unrest.

But for every advance, Bahrain has had to contend with a setback. In the space of two days in mid-August, one French lender, Credit Agricole, was reported to be moving its regional headquarters out of Bahrain while another, BNP Paribas, was said to be dispersing some of its back-office operations around the Gulf — twin blows to a country that prides itself as the region’s first financial center.

“The situation will never stabilize itself ’til there is a political solution. We don’t even have the makings of that at this time,” Salman Shaikh, director of the Brooking Doha Center on Qatar, told The Media Line. “The problem with this situation is that the longer it goes on, the more difficult it will be to control the protest movement.”

In an event that pointed up the fragility of Bahrain’s political situation nearly six months after Saudi and United Arab Emirates (UAE) forces put down protests at King Hamad’s request, the kingdom was briefly shaken by street fighting between demonstrators and police after the alleged killing of a 14-year-old boy last week.

Bahrain has been the only Gulf country to be swept up in the Arab Spring turmoil. It is a tiny, oil-poor country, but is of key concern to its neighbors and to the U.S., which bases the Navy’s Fifth Fleet there, because it is located in the waters between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Its mixed population of Sunnis and Shiites makes it a flashpoint in the sectarian cold war between the two Muslim sects.

Since he imposed martial law and brought Saudi and UAE forces into the country, King Hamad has made some gestures of political reform, creating a National Dialogue Commission to discuss change with the country’s majority but marginalized Shiites. Also, at the end of August, he announced pardons for many political protesters while urging workers who had been sacked from their jobs for joining demonstrations to be reinstated.

But the severity of the crackdown – which left about 30 dead and led to the arrest of some 1,400 people, many of them still in prison – has left many Bahrainis feeling alienated and disillusioned. Small-scale clashes between police and mostly Shiite demonstrators have become nightly events since King Hamad lifted emergency rule in June.

Last Tuesday a group of Bahraini doctors on trial on charges of terrorism began a hunger strike to protest their treatment, including claims of torture. A day later, 14-year-old Ali Jawad died after he was shot in the head, opposition activists said, setting off 24 hours of street fighting.

The government has hired the Washington public relations firm Qorvis Communications, which counts Saudi Arabia among its clients, to upgrade its image abroad. But Shaikh said not enough was being done to create an inclusive domestic political structure.

“We see an increasingly radicalized youth. Young Shiite radicalized youth in Bahrain is not a movie you want to play over and over again,” said Shaikh. “Even if the opposition is somewhat disunited, there has been some ingenuity in keeping the protest alive. You’re seeing hunger strikes and flash protests taking place in the villages.”

Industry and Commerce Minister Hassan Fakhro told Bloomberg News on Aug. 22 that consumer and business confidence is almost back to normal. He said the number of new companies registering with the ministry in May-July was 30 percent higher than the same time last year, while the number of shoppers at City Center, Bahrain’s biggest shopping center, was up 8.5 percent in July from a year ago.

But the moves by Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas could set off a run of banks, undermining Bahrain’s status as a regional banking and finance center. Some $10 billion in mutual funds are managed in the kingdom and its banks hold assets of about $211 billion.

Meanwhile, the economic news reported earlier in the week wasn’t all positive. While quarter-on-quarter growth resumed, gross domestic product marked its sixth quarterly year-on-year slowdown in a row even as higher oil prices lifted Bahrain’s key energy sector.

“The main drivers seem to be manufacturing and oil. Financial services were flat, which is better than people expected because there was a lot of talk about services going to Dubai,” Said Hirsh, Middle East economist at London-based Capital Economics, told The Media Line. “But the entire services sector is still at risk.”

Hirsh said he expected government spending would compensate for tepid growth in the private sector. Saudi Arabia has committed to giving Bahrain $1 billion annually over the next decade, equivalent to 5 percent of GDP. In July, Central Bank Governor Rasheed Al-Maraj forecast the economy to expand by 3 percent this year.

Analysts said Bahrain’s stability will be tested by two political events in the coming weeks – Sept. 24 elections for seats in parliament to replace lawmakers from the Al-Wefaq party, who resigned last February, and the final report of the Bahrain commission of inquiry due out Oct. 30.

View full post on All Stories

Seattle, WA, United States (AHN Sports) – PBA Hall of Famers Mike Aulby and Parker Bohn III, along with PBA Tour champions Danny Wiseman and Doug Kent, participated in the 10th annual “Jeff Gordon Bowling Ball” in Indianapolis on July 28, an event that raised more than $300,000 in support of Jeff Gordon’s Children’s Foundation and Riley Hospital for Children.

The annual bowling fundraiser has generated more than $1.58 million to Riley Hospital for Children since its inception. In addition, Gordon made a pledge of $1.5 million to Riley Children’s Foundation in 2010, establishing the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation Pediatric Cancer Research Fund.

Funds from the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation are creating a $1 million endowment for research conducted in partnership between Riley Hospital and the Wells Center for Pediatric Research at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The remaining $500,000 is addressing immediate research needs at Riley Hospital.

BARNES TO APPEAR ON NBC’S TODAY SHOW ON FRIDAY, AUG. 19

PBA Triple Crown winner Chris Barnes will make an appearance on NBC’s The Today Show on Friday, Aug. 19, offering bowling tips to co-hosts Kathi Lee Gifford and Hoda Katb along with their mothers. Barnes also will do a few bowling stunts.

The segment will be taped at Bowlmor Lanes in Manhattan. Barnes and The Today Show ladies will be joined by three local youth bowlers who will also show off their skills. The Gifford-Hatb segment airs in the fourth hour of The Today Show.

PBA SENIOR TOUR, REGIONAL COVERAGE RETURNS TO XTRA FRAME

PBA.com’s exclusive online coverage of the PBA Senior Tour and Regional action continues with Xtra Frame airing the final rounds of the concluding events on the 2011 PBA Senior Tour schedule. And while the Xtra Frame staff is in the neighborhood, pba.com’s subscription-based video streaming service will also include

coverage of the finals of two PBA Regional events.

The upcoming Xtra Frame schedule includes:

Sunday, Aug. 14 – PBA Central Region Elite Motors/Backhaul Direct Open, Crest Lanes, Marion, Ind.

Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 15-16 – PBA Senior Decatur Open, Spare Time Lanes, Decatur, Ill.

Sunday, Aug. 21 – PBA Central Region Lefeld Implement Classic, Pla-Mor Lanes, Coldwater, Ohio.

Wednesday-Thursday, Aug. 24-25 – PBA Senior Jackson Open, Airport Lanes, Jackson, Mich.

Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 29-30 – PBA Senior Dayton Classic, Capri Lanes, Kettering, Ohio.

To subscribe to Xtra Frame, visit pba.com and click on the Xtra Frame logo.

PBA Regional Roundup:

INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS GOMEZ, WILLIAMS AMONG PBA REGIONAL WINNERS

Colombian native Andres Gomez of Sunrise, Fla., defeated Jesse Rodriguez of Davie, Fla., 235-174, to win his first PBA title in the PBA South Region’s Jimmy Keeth Memorial Open at Jupiter Lanes on Sunday. Along with his title, Gomez earned $2,500.

Also on Sunday, another international player won his first PBA title. In the West Region, Stuart Williams of England posted a 4-4 match play record and a 16-game total of 3,844 pins to win the PBA West Region Virgin River Lanes Championship.

Williams, who earned $1,300, defeated Andre Eubanks of Los Angeles, Calif., by 158 pins for his first PBA Regional title. With his win, Williams became eligible to enter the 2012 PBA Tournament of Champions which will be held in April at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas. Eubanks had a 5-3 match play record and 3,686 pins for 16 games including match play bonus pins.

In the companion Virgin River Senior Open, Tony Rodriquez Jr. of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., went 5-3 and knocked down 3,948 total pins for 16 games to top Marv Sargent of Temecula, Calif., for his first Senior Regional title and $1,200. Rodriguez also became eligible to enter the Tournament of Champions as a PBA title winner. Sargent had 3,909 pins, 39 behind Rodriquez.

Bill O’Neill of Southampton, Pa., defeated Travis Celmer of Wernersville, Pa., 240-192, to win the PBA East Region Storm Products/Bowlers Supply Open at Colony Park Lanes North Sunday for a $2,800 prize and his seventh career PBA Regional title.

In Arlington Heights, Ill., Harry Sullins of Chesterfield Township, Mich., closed with a string of five strikes, overcoming a 29-pin seventh-frame deficit to upset top qualifier Kerry Painter of Henderson, Nev., 213-210, in the title game of the PBA Midwest/Central Senior Beverly Lanes Open presented by Allstate Insurance on

Sunday. It was Sullins’ third PBA Senior Regional title of the season and the 18th overall regional title of his career.

In Lubbock, Texas, West Texas A&M collegiate player Taylor Coggins of Burleson, Texas, won nine of his 12 matches to pull away from the rest of the finalists and win the inaugural PBA Southwest Region Lubbock Open at South Plains Lanes Sunday. Coggins earned $2,200, topping Dino Castillo of Carrollton, Texas, by 229 pins for the win. But he doesn’t get credit for a PBA title because he’s a non-member.

Next weekend’s round of PBA Regional events includes: the PBA East Region Iroquois Lanes Senior Open in Canajorharie, N.Y.; the Central Region Elite Motors/Backhaul Direct Open at Crest Lanes in Marion, Ind.; the Midwest Region St. Charles Lanes Non-Champions Challenge in St. Charles, Mo.; the Southwest Region Plano Super Bowl Open in Plano, Texas, and the PBA Northwest/West Region Ten Down Lanes Open

presented by West Bank at Roseburg, Ore.

Also in the Central Region, the Modern Woodmen of America Senior Championship at Al-Mar Lanes in Bowling Green, Ohio, will be held Tuesday-Friday, Aug. 16-19, sandwiched between the PBA Senior Decatur (Ill.) Open and the PBA Senior Jackson (Mich.) Open.

For complete Regional tournament schedules and entry information, visit pba.com and click on “Regional Tour” under the “Schedules” drop-down tab.

QUICK NOTES:

Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour star Tommy Jones and partner Shannon Pluhowsky won their fourth title in the 12th annual Luci Bonneau Striking Against Breast Cancer Memorial Mixed Doubles Tournament in Houston, Texas, on July 24. Jones and Pluhowsky posted a combined 16-game total of 3,490 pins to top Andres Gomez and Clara Guerrero by 59 pins. Emily Maier and two-time PBA Tour titlist Mike Fagan finished third in a sold-out field of 84 teams that featured more than a dozen Lumber Liquidators PBA

Tour title winners.

Journeyman PBA Senior Tour competitor Ron Garr of Ridgedale, Mo., may be done bowling for the season. The 64-year-old right-hander made it to Round 8 in the losers’ bracket in the USBC Senior Masters before being eliminated and tying for fifth place, but he was experiencing some hip pain. He decided to work it out by

riding a bike, but reportedly hit a rut and took a nasty spill, resulting in a fractured left collarbone in addition to assorted abrasions.

PBA Hall of Famer Amleto Monacelli won a pair of gold medals for Venezuela in the men’s singles and men’s all-events categories in the 44th Lee Evans Tournament of the Americas at Sawgrass Lanes in Tamarac, Fla. Monacelli won the singles crown with a 12-game total of 2,657 pins and led in all-events with a 36-game total of 7,879 pins, a 218.86 average. The event, which drew competitors from 15 American Zone countries, ended on Aug. 6.

View full post on All Stories

Brussels, Belgium (AHN) – Solving the Greek sovereign debt crisis is essential or the other member states of the Eurozone will feel the negative consequences, warned the European Commission president.

Eurozone leaders are meeting in Brussels, Belgium this week to discuss the Greek crisis.

Despite the urgency of the matter, Eurozone leaders remain divided on how to address the problem.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her nation wants private investors to help with any package of aid by rolling over loans they have already made to Greece, thereby extending the due dates for repayment.

But the European Central Bank objects to this plan and says international credit agencies would view that move as a default by Greece and it would undermine investor confidence not just in Greek debt but in the value of the euro as well.

With such a level of disagreement, Merkel has said it is not likely that any concrete plan will emerge from this meeting.

Observers have said that the basic problem stems from merging the currencies of 17 nations without first merging agreeing on similar fiscal policies.

View full post on All Stories

Detroit, MI, United States (AHN Sports) – The San Francisco Giants feasted on Detroit pitching Saturday night in cruising past the Tigers.

Home run power, including a grand slam from Miguel Tejada, ignited the Giants to a 15-3 win over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.

The 15 runs marked a season high for the Giants, who have not suffered a loss this season of a game in which they had a lead of three runs or more.

The Giants were leading 6-0 in the third inning when the game was delayed because of a heavy thunderstorm. The game was delayed 2 hours and 45 minutes before action resumed.

“We wanted to keep going,” San Francisco coach Bruce Bochy said, noting there was some thought on playing a doubleheader Sunday. “We had the 6-0 lead and the last thing we wanted was a doubleheader tomorrow. The big thing was we were able to finish the game.”

Pablo Sandoval extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a two-run homer in the first inning, his seventh of the season, for a 2-0 lead. Late in the evening, Brandon Crawford had a three-run homer, his second of the season, for a 5-0 advantage.

Tiger starter Max Scherzer gave up back-to-back doubles in the third inning for San Francisco’s sixth run before the rains came. Scherzer, 9-4, took the loss.

Brayan Villarreal took over for Scherzer when the game resumed and gave up Tejada’s third home run of the season and his 12th career grand slam.

“I wasn’t trying to hit a home run,” Tejada said. “I was trying to hit the ball in the air. We waited for a long time to get back into the game. We are professionals. It was like a new game.”

Aubrey Huff added a two-run single for the Giants in the top of the fifth for a 12-0 lead.

In the sixth, Eli Whiteside doubled home two runs while Andres Torres added an RBI groundout for a 15-0 lead.

“I give my hitters credit,” Bochy said. “They had some good at bats out there.”

Barry Zito pitched six shutout innings for the Giants to improve his record to 2-1.

“What a job he did against a tough lineup,” Bochy said “To keep his focus the way he did, he did an amazing job using all of his pitches.”"

“He’s going to outsmart you,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said. “He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t have the power arm he once had but he still knows exactly what he’s doing. He’ll try to get you out of the strike zone, he’s going to change speeds, he’s going to cut the ball and he’s going to sink it.”

“He’s smart. He’s one of those guys over the years who has adjusted from power stuff to the ability of knowing how to use it and when to use it.”

Jhonny Peralta broke the shutout with his 14th home run of the season in the bottom of the seventh off Giant reliever Guillermo Mota. Brennan Boesch followed with his 11th homer of the year.

San Francisco, leading the National League West, is 48-36 and has won nine of its last 11. Detroit fell to 44-40.

View full post on All Stories

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – More Americans continue to save in banks rather than borrow money from financial institutions. According to latest data from the Federal Reserve, savings in U.S. banks hit a record $1.45 trillion in May.

The growing savings has been observed since the global financial crisis in 2008.

A similar trend was observed in Japan, where the gap between savings and borrowing is at an all-time high.

Japanese banks use the money to purchase bonds to help keep yields the lowest in the world even if Tokyo has more outstanding debts than the U.S. and a lower credit rating.

Before 2008, U.S. deposits exceeded loans at an average of $100 billion.

Because of the worst recession experienced in the U.S. since the 1930s, consumers trimmed household debt to $13.3 trillion from the 2008 peak of $13.9 trillion. The reduction resulted in savings going up 4.9 percent of income from 1.7 percent in 2007.

For the same period, banks reduced lending amid over $2 trillion in losses and writedowns. Rather than grant more loans, American financial institutions instead bought Treasuries and government-related debt, which boosted their holding of such instruments to $1.68 trillion from $1.08 trillion in early 2008.

Economists forecast it would take the U.S. and Japanese economies at least a decade to extricate themselves from the mess of being a debt-ridden society.

View full post on All Stories