Management at AIG has calculated exactly how much money the Treasury and Fed will have access to after all of the TARP, financial stimulus, and mortgage bailout projects have been funded. The insurance company then plans to ask for whatever is left to fund its deficits so that it can stay in business, effectively making the federal government insolvent. According to CNBC, AIG is about to post another huge loss. "Sources close to the company said the loss will ...

The world needs a "global New Deal" to haul it out of the economic crisis it faces, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom said Sunday. "We need a global New Deal -- a grand bargain between the countries and continents of this world -- so that the world economy can not only recover but... so the banking system can be based on... best principles," he said, referring to the 1930s American plan to fight the Great Depression. Brown ...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up a 20,000-mile, four-nation trip to Asia -- her first in the new post -- emphasizing that the United States is actively engaged with the region. Clinton traveled to Japan, China, South Korea and Indonesia to discuss a range of issues, including solving the global economic crisis, the prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation and reversing the global warming trend. She returned to Washington on Sunday. Clinton broached the issue of human rights with ...


 The American shopper is dazed and confused. What do I really want, versus what do I really need Sure, I can afford the plasma television now, but should I save that $2,000, in case I get laid off tomorrow Can I really tell my snobby friends that I now shop at — egads — Walmart To gauge the mindset of the American consumer, and the state of shopping during this recession, TIME checked in with respected retail expert ...

Ahead of her first trip abroad as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said she planned to renew U.S. focus on Asia, which she suggested the Bush administration had ignored. In China, that new attitude of engagement has been cautiously welcomed. "For many years the U.S. has been accustomed to delivering its demands to China, and this situation should change," the popular nationalist tabloid Global Times put it on the morning of Clinton's arrival. "The U.S. can no longer ...

This is how a submarine-launched ballistic missile works: once airborne, the 60-ton missile travels out of the earth's atmosphere into sub-orbit, where it moves toward its target at a shade under 4 miles a second. Approaching its destination, the tip of the missile splits into multiple, independently targeted warheads, each loaded with bombs up to 24 times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast, which re-enter the atmosphere in a spectacle that from the ground would resemble a meteor shower, before it resembled a thousand roaring suns. ...

Antiguan and Barbudan regulators Friday took control of U.S.financier Robert Allen Stanford's financial institutions on the twin-island nation, a day after federal agents served the Texas businessman with papers accusing him of running an investment fraud scheme. The Financial Services Regulatory Commission of Antigua and Barbuda appointed receivers to manage Stanford International Bank Ltd. and Stanford Trust Company Ltd., the commission said in a statement. The receivers, Nigel Hamilton-Smith and Peter Wastell of Britain-based Vantis Business Recovery Services, are in ...

The England and Wales Cricket Board have confirmed they have terminated all contractual links with Sir Allen Stanford -- the Texan billionaire charged with an alleged nine billion dollars fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. All negotiations between the ECB and Stanford were immediately suspended when the news broke on Tuesday -- and the governing body has now formally announced they will not play any further Stanford Twenty20 matches in Antigua as well as shelving plans for the Quadrangular ...

President Obama met Friday with 85 mayors from across the country to discuss the implementation of city-related funding from the $787 billion stimulus package. "You shouldn't have to succeed despite Washington; you should be succeeding with a hand from Washington, and that's what you're getting now," Obama said at a White House reception. "This plan does more to lay a new foundation for our cities' growth and opportunity than anything Washington has done in generations." The economic stimulus package sets ...

In a Facebook video, the screen is filled with a sea of 20-something men and women cruising on sleek black motorbikes, all of them Harley-Davidson's Sportster Iron 883. It's part of marketing campaign to generate buzz around the newest Sportster. "That's hot!" one woman declares on Harley-Davidson's Facebook page, where other mini-documentaries promoting the bike are posted. Back at Harley's Milwaukee headquarters, one can only hope for heat. At roughly $8,000, the Sportster is positioned to ...