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Links 4/13/08
naked capitalism — ... to GM by making more optimistic assumptions about auto sales. Moves like that raise the odds of the worst outcome, that a Chapter 11 morphs in the courthouse into a liquidation. If so, kiss the economy goodbye. $80,000 for Year Off From Law? She’ll Take It! New York Times Ireland is ECB's sacrifical lamb to satisfy German inflation demands Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph Moody’s uses First Amendment – when it suits BreakingViews Bailed-Out Banks Face Probe Over Fee Hikes Wall Street Journal Surge in middle-class ...

TARP Recipients Face Another Charge Of Mismanagement: A Customer Bill Of Rights
24/7 Wall St. — ... According to The Wall Street Journal, “The committee overseeing federal banking-bailout programs is investigating the lending practices of institutions that received public funds, following a rash of complaints about increases in interest rates and fees.” It seems that banks including Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) are charging amounts for customer transactions that might be considered unreasonable if part of the TARP’s goals are to ease credit. Add that to the fact that the banks are hoarding much of the money they have received to ...

Banks Take TARP Funds, Raise Consumer Fees: So What's the Problem?
Yahoo! Finance: Tech Ticker — The return of bank profitability has been one of the key factors to the market's five-week winning streak. But now, banks are coming under scrutiny from the TARP oversight committee for having raised fees on consumer loans. Since the TARP program was launched in October, banks "have boosted charges on a wide range of routine transactions, hiked rates on credit cards and continued making loans criticized as predatory by consumer advocates," The Wall Street Journal reports . The Journal cites some examples of how consumer fees have risen in the past six months: The banks will ...