Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue,  the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, moved more than $110 million in suspect funds into U.S. accounts
Foreign officials with potential corruption links are exploiting weaknesses in federal anti-money-laundering safeguards to move millions of dollars into U.S. bank accounts and properties, according to a Senate report released Thursday.
 

Customer records were stolen from
British bank HSBC’s operation in Switzerland
The German government says it plans to buy a CD containing customer data apparently stolen from British bank HSBC’s operation in Switzerland. The move has enraged Swiss officials, but it already appears to be bearing fruit. Berlin expects a wave of tax evaders to turn themselves [...]

a new study shows that many people, when faced with a financial crisis, are not putting their mortgages first.
TransUnion, one of the big credit bureaus, recently released a report showing that an increasing number of consumers are choosing to pay their credit card bills before their monthly mortgages.
My grandmother Big Mama had a key financial [...]

Migrant workers wait for a bus to return them to the labor camps outside Dubai, but many of the jobs have dried up.
When his overnight flight landed, Abdul Wahib walked out of Kochi’s palm-fringed airport and hugged his family. After 24 years of working in the United Arab Emirates, he was home. He carried a [...]

A couple looking at a shop in Greece as the economy has suffered a major deficit crisis.
Governments in Athens, Madrid and Lisbon struggled on Friday to quell fears of a looming debt crisis in Europe that is pummeling the euro and rippling across global markets, as authorities vowed to impose fiscal austerity and plug their [...]

Zero Rupee banknote
Special zero rupee banknotes have been issued by an anti-corruption campaign to challenge India’s bribe culture.  Campaigners from the Fifth Pillar charity, which confronts corrupt officials using freedom of information legislation, have issued notes bearing the image of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of its freedom struggle.
 

Small business turning to alternative financing when big banks turn them down
In the glory days of the digital photo frame business, when his products were still a novelty and shoppers were flush with cash, getting a bank loan to manufacture them was a cinch, Michael Levy says.  We would say: ‘We got a $1 million order [...]

Harvard University has the biggest endowment
Average college endowment returns plummeted 18.7% last year, the worst decline for higher education since the Great Depression, a report says.  Overall, higher education endowments fared better than other indexes; the widely used S&P 500 was down 26.2% over the same period, the 12 months ending last June 30. And, [...]

Many luxury apartments in New York offering incentives to renters
Scores of stalled construction projects can be found scattered around New York City, but one category of building that doesn’t seem to have been sidetracked by the recession is the luxury apartment rental.
 

Wives earning more than husbands
In a trend that researchers call “the rise of wives,” women are increasingly better-educated than their husbands and have emerged as the dominant income-provider in one of five marriages, according to a new report released today.
 

Many time share owners stuck trying to sell their time shares
For Stacey Udell, a Craigslist ad enticing her to own a piece of property in the Bahamas for $3,000 was too good to pass up.  The accountant from Cherry Hill, N.J., jumped on it, and became one of 6 million Americans who own a time share, shared vacation [...]

The first leg of the financial crisis seems to be behind us and most European economies are reemerging from recession. Attention is now shifting towards the sustainability of public finances. The latest European Commission forecasts show the public debt-to-GDP ratio for euro-zone countries rising to 88% in 2011 from 69% as recently as 2008. Government [...]

This home in San Antonio facing foreclosure without imminent relief
The Obama administration’s mortgage relief plan provided help to only 7% of borrowers who signed up last year, another black mark for the struggling program.
 

Stacks of money at the Federal Reserve in San Francisco
Wall Street firms aren’t the only banks that had a banner year. The Federal Reserve made record profits in 2009, as its unconventional efforts to prop up the economy created a windfall for the government.
 

China will have a $123 trillion economy by 2040. By then, the country will account for 40% of the world’s gross domestic product and be “superrich.” The American economy, by way of contrast, will produce only 14% of global output. And Europe? The E.U. will claim just 5%. So says Robert Fogel, and he has [...]

Cybergangs inundate internet with “banking Trojans”
A rising swarm of cyber-robberies targeting small firms, local governments, school districts, churches and non-profits has prompted an extraordinary warning. The American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a separate PC used exclusively for online banking.The [...]

More Chinese rich people join the trend to pursue American permanent residency by making investments in the United States. But they may be victimized by financial traps set up by domestic immigration agencies and foreign investment organizations, local expert warned.
 

China’s financial hub, Shanghai will overtake London as the world’s second-largest financial center after New York in 10 years, according to a recent survey conducted by law firm Eversheds.
 

About 1.7 million homeowners were on the verge of foreclosure in the fall, a looming “shadow inventory” of homes that will be put up for sale in the coming years and weigh down prices, a report said Thursday. The number, up from 1.1 million a year earlier, is likely to keep rising through the middle [...]

Apparently its open season on consumers
It’s no mistake. This credit card’s interest rate is 79.9%. The bloated APR is how First Premier Bank, a subprime credit card issuer, is skirting new regulations intended to curb abusive practices in the industry. It’s a strategy other subprime card issuers could start adopting to get around the new [...]

New research methodology devised by New Economics Foundation (NEF) to calculate the social value of different jobs has concluded that hospital cleaners create more than £10 in value for every £1 they receive in pay. Meanwhile “elite City bankers” – those who earn over £500,000 – destroy £7 of value for every £1 they create.
 

Amid a widening wealth gap between rich and poor, a new survey has found that 96 percent of the public said they feel resentful toward the rich.  The latest survey, released by the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences, also shows that 70 percent of 1,159 respondents said they feel “a big gap” between the rich [...]

I can see clearly now that I am well funded…

Yesterday some of Europe’s most influential and active seed/angel investors got together in London for a ’summit’ organised by Seedcamp, the pan European early stage startup program. We understand the morning of SeedSummit (press weren’t invited) was devoted to frank exchanges between the investors about the [...]

Square can send receipts by e-mail and SMS.
Square, a new startup based in San Francisco and headed by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, opened its doors amid much hype and fanfare last week. But some experts are already questioning whether the company will be able to sustain itself.
 

Money can buy you happiness – especially if you are paid by the hour
Researchers found that being paid by the hour had a greater impact on your wellbeing than getting a salary as you feel a greater connection between effort and reward.