The Subsidy That Won't Die

The big banks claim the government isn't helping them anymore. Not exactly. Check out this little-known subsidy.

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The Recession's Winners and Losers

Not everyone suffered during the financial crisis. A look at those won and lost big during Wall Street's meltdown.

The big bankers are in the news again, and they're steamed. On Wednesday, bank CEOs will testify before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Meanwhile, the industry is pushing back against plans from the Obama administration to tax large banks as part of an effort to recoup bailout costs. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, bristling at criticism of his hardworking bankers, told employees: "I am a little tired of the constant vilification of these people." Wall Street's big shots have had enough They've paid back their TARP money—which, some of them say, they didn't need anyway—with interest. They've got the government off their balance sheets, so now the government should stop meddling with them.

But the big American banks aren't nearly so independent as they would have us believe. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and their peers are still benefitting hugely from significant post-crisis subsidy programs that boost their profits. I'm talking mostly about the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP). This was a program started in the wake of the Lehman Bros. collapse to deal with the fact that banks were having a tough time raising short-term capital on decent terms. Under the TLGP, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is ultimately backed by the taxpayers, would guarantee debt in exchange for fees paid by the banks issuing debt.

The TGLP was ended to new entrants in June 2009 and thus far has gone without a loss. But the fact remains: Private companies were allowed to borrow massive amounts of money—$345 billion at the peak in May 2009—on the public's credit. At the end of the third quarter, there was still $313 billion outstanding.

Banks and financial institutions have to pay money to get money. When they pay less to borrow, it's much easier to make profits, and they tend to borrow more of it. When they have to pay more to borrow, it's more difficult to make money. This chart (from Bloomberg, via Zero Hedge) breaks down the TLGP borrowings of individual institutions as of Nov. 30 and the interest rates they're paying. General Electric was the largest user, with nearly $88 billion. (Its GE Capital unit has prodigious borrowing needs.) But GE was followed by the big bailed-out banks: Citigroup ($64.6 billion), Bank of America ($44.5 billion), JPMorgan ($39.7 billion), Morgan Stanley ($25 billion), Goldman Sachs ($21.26 billion), and Wells Fargo ($9.5 billion). With the exception of Citi, the government no longer owns shares in these firms. And so they feel the government should have no say in their practices going forward.

But if these firms are such rugged individualists, why do they persist in borrowing on the public's credit rather than their own? And why did they do it in the first place? After all, unlike with the TARP, participation in the TLGP program was entirely voluntary. Here's a list of the banks that opted out of the program: You'll note that the Wall Street biggies aren't on it. At any time, the banks could go out into the public markets and raise debt to replace the taxpayer-subsidized borrowings. But they haven't. The reason: It would make them less profitable. Take Goldman. The chart shows that Goldman was paying a blended rate of 0.767 percent annual interest on $21.3 billion in FDIC-guaranteed debt. For every 100 basis points (i.e., if that debt bore an interest rate of 1.7 percent instead of 0.7 percent), Goldman is saving $213 million in interest costs per year. In the spring of 2009, when much of this debt was issued, the spread—i.e., the difference between the interest rates charged to private-sector corporate borrowers and to the government borrowers—was significant. In April 2009, it stood at 540 basis points. I don't know what to call this other than a huge subsidy.

There are more ongoing subsidies for the big banks. The fact that taxpayers guarantee the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preserved the value of mortgage-backed securities owned by these banks. One of the components of the TARP is the HAMP, under which the government writes checks to lenders who made reckless loans so that they can modify them and keep people in their homes. Funds issued under the HAMP are not expected to be paid back. From April through December 2009, more than $35 billion in such funds have been disbursed to lenders, with more to come. Check out Page 20 of the most recent TARP transactions report, and you'll see that the list of participants in HAMP includes CitiMortgage (a unit of Citi), Wells Fargo, Saxon (owned by Morgan Stanley), and Bank of America and one of its subsidiaries, Countrywide.

Among the first questions the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commissioners should ask each CEO: How much worse would their profits be if taxpayers weren't insuring huge chunks of their debt—and if they had to borrow on their own credit instead of on the public's? And would they care to quantify the amount of the subsidies they're getting?

© 2010

Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate Conspiracy Groups

Sunstein called for Cointelpro style effort to silence truth using army of hired provocateurs

Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, outlined a plan for the government to infiltrate conspiracy groups in order to undermine them via postings on chat rooms and social networks, as well as real meetings, according to a recently uncovered article Sunstein wrote for the Journal of Political Philosophy.

As we have often warned, chat rooms, social networks and particularly article comment sections are routinely “gamed” by trolls, many of whom pose as numerous different people in order to create a fake consensus, who attempt to debunk whatever information is being discussed, no matter how credible and well documented. We have seen this on our own websites for years and although some of those individuals were acting of their own accord, a significant number appeared to be working in shifts, routinely posting the same talking points over and over again.

It is a firmly established fact that the military-industrial complex which also owns the corporate media networks in the United States has numerous programs aimed at infiltrating prominent Internet sites and spreading propaganda to counter the truth about the misdeeds of the government and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2006 CENTCOM, the United States Central Command, announced that a team of employees would be hired to engage “bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information,” about the so-called war on terror.

In May 2008, it was revealed that the Pentagon was expanding “Information Operations” on the Internet by setting up fake foreign news websites, designed to look like independent media sources but in reality carrying direct military propaganda.

Countries like Israel have also admitted to creating an army of online trolls whose job it is to infiltrate anti-war websites and act as apologists for the Zionist state’s war crimes.

In January last year, the US Air Force announced a “counter-blog” response plan aimed at fielding and reacting to material from bloggers who have “negative opinions about the US government and the Air Force.”

The plan, created by the public affairs arm of the Air Force, includes a detailed twelve-point “counter blogging” flow-chart that dictates how officers should tackle what are described as “trolls,” “ragers,” and “misguided” online writers.

New revelations highlight the fact that the Obama administration is deliberately targeting “conspiracy groups” as part of a Cointelpro style effort to silence what have become the government’s most vociferous and influential critics.

In a 2008 article published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Obama information czar Cass Sunstein outlined a plan for the government to stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.

The aim of the program would be to “(break) up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories,” wrote Sunstein, with particular reference to 9/11 truth organizations.

Sunstein pointed out that simply having people in government refute conspiracy theories wouldn’t work because they are inherently untrustworthy, making it necessary to “Enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts,” he wrote.

“Put into English, what Sunstein is proposing is government infiltration of groups opposing prevailing policy,” writes Marc Estrin.

“It’s easy to destroy groups with “cognitive diversity.” You just take up meeting time with arguments to the point where people don’t come back. You make protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.”

This is what Sunstein is advocating when he writes of the need to infiltrate conspiracy groups and sow seeds of distrust amongst members in order to stifle the number of new recruits. This is classic “provocateur” style infiltration that came to the fore during the Cointelpro years, an FBI program from 1956-1971 that was focused around disrupting, marginalizing and neutralizing political dissidents.

“Sunstein argued that “government might undertake (legal) tactics for breaking up the tight cognitive clusters of extremist theories.” He suggested that “government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action,” reports Raw Story.

Sunstein has also called for making websites liable for comments posted in response to articles. His book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, was criticized by some as “a blueprint for online censorship.”

The Infowars office has been visited on numerous occasions by the FBI as a result of people posting violent comments in response to articles. Since the government now employs people to post such comments in an attempt to undermine conspiracy websites, if a law were passed making websites accountable, Sunstein’s program would allow the government to obliterate such sites from the web merely by having their own hired goons post threats against public figures.

The fact that the government is being forced to hire armies of trolls in an effort to silence the truth shows how worried they are about the effect we are having in waking up millions of people to their tyranny.

Ahmadinejad calls 9/11 attacks “suspicious”

Washington, 14 January (WashingtonTV)—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday described the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States as a “suspicious” event.

Speaking in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Ahmadinejad asserted that many “experts” believed that the 9/11 attacks were a US-Israeli plot to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.

“They want to dominate the Middle East with their military presence and all their planning is aimed to achieve this goal. Human rights, fighting nuclear weapons and fighting terrorism is all a big lie,” he said.

“Even the event of 11 September is a suspicious incident,” the president added.

This was not the first time that Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, questioned the 9/11 attacks. In April 2008, he also described the attacks as a “suspect event”, reports the BBC.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said that “many researchers and scholars” believe the attacks were an excuse for waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq and “occupying” Pakistan.

“They even instigated Saddam [Hussein] to [wage] the eight-year war against our nation in order to dominate the Middle East,” Ahmadinejad said.

The 9/11 attacks were the worst terrorist attacks on American soil, with nearly 3,000 deaths.

Sources: Official website of the president of Iran, BBC News

© WashingtonTV 2010. All rights reserved.

Financial adviser Weizhen Tang arrested Wed. on return to Toronto from China

TORONTO - Financial adviser Weizhen Tang - who's accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that allegedly defrauded investors of tens of millions of dollars - was arrested Wednesday night upon his return to Toronto from China.

Enlarge Photo

THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Toronto Police

Weizhen Tang, 51, is shown in this photo release by the Toronto Police.

Toronto police Staff Sgt. Edward Tymburski said two officers from the fraud squad took Tang into custody aboard the plane when his Air Canada flight arrived at Pearson International Airport.

Wearing a dark coat, Tang was whisked away from the airport out of the glare of media cameras. He was taken to Toronto's 51 Division where he was to spend the night in jail pending an arraignment in court on Thursday morning, he said.

"He arranged to surrender himself and he flew from Shanghai tonight and turned himself in to fraud squad officers," said Tymburski.

Toronto police had issued a Canada-wide arrest warrant for Tang, 51, who has been charged with fraud over $5,000 related to defrauding the public.

The charge of defrauding the public covers all the victims of the alleged fraud, said Tymburski.

"He's been co-operative," said Tymburski, who added Tang appeared to be in good physical shape and was calm.

"He expected to step into custody when he got off the plane," said Tymburski.

Some passengers on the plane said they had seen a man arrested on the flight but didn't see handcuffs used. They said that the pilot told them over the intercom to stay calm and remain in their seats for a couple of minutes while Tang was taken off the plane.

"I saw two police come over for one guy, before we get off, everybody was seated," said passenger Daisy Dong, who had arrived on the same Air Canada flight.

The fraud warrant is in addition to 12 counts of breaching the Securities Act laid against Tang last June by the Ontario Securities Commission in connection with the hedge fund Tang administers, the Oversea Chinese Fund Limited Partnership.

It's alleged that between January 2006 and March 2009, more than 100 victims were defrauded of approximately $30 million through an online trading Ponzi scheme. Toronto police allege there were victims in the United States, China and Canada, including one Toronto-area resident who allegedly lost $2.4 million.

Police launched their investigation in April 2009 after a number of people walked into a Toronto police division to complain that they'd been defrauded.

Arrangements had initially been made between police and Tang's lawyer Loftus Cuddy in November to bring the suspect back to Canada on Dec. 29, but he did not return at that time and police and his lawyer said they believed he was trying to raise money for his defence in Asia, which Tang later confirmed.

"I am innocent and welcome any investigations and respect the legal process very much," Tang writes in a letter addressed to police that was posted just a few days ago on his website.

"To be honest, I have nothing to do with fraud and have most of investors and public support, a fraudster could not ever dreamed to have," Tang wrote.

Tang is being represented by a lawyer, said Tymburski.

However earlier in the day, Cuddy had said he had been asked to represent Tang but they couldn't agree on a retainer because Tang was broke and that Tang might have to apply for legal aid.

A native of mainland China, Tang came to Canada in the 1990s. He is a Canadian who lives in Toronto with his wife and children and his company is based in the city, Cuddy said.

A well-known figure in Toronto's Chinese community, Tang helped fund the Chinese Lunar New Year Show and put on investment summits that featured economists from China and the United States.

The Ontario Securities Commission alleges Tang committed securities fraud. He's also accused of unregistered trading in securities and illegal distributions of securities. His trial in provincial court in that case is scheduled to begin April 19.

Earlier this month, the commission put out an investor warning that said Tang may be soliciting residents of Ontario for investment purposes and that previous Oversea Chinese Fund investors, their family or friends may be targeted.

Last April, a federal judge in Dallas granted a request by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for emergency relief for investors, freezing the assets of Tang and several of his businesses, including the Texas-based WinWin Capital Management LLC. The judge appointed a receiver to take control of Tang's assets, which also include WinWin Capital Partners LP and Bluejay Investment LLC.

The U.S. complaint alleges Tang has already told investors of the Ponzi scheme.

In February, the U.S. commission said, he acknowledged in a letter to clients that he tried to conceal trading losses and attract new investors to his hedge fund by posting false profits on account statements and using funds from new investors to pay at least US$8 million in fake profits to earlier investors.

UK Puts Iceland on Terrorist List

One of the casualties of the financial crisis which has gotten little notice in the US is Icleand, and it went down in a particularly ugly fashion. Gordon Brown, the UK’s fantastically unpopular Prime Minister, said that Icelandic banks had threatened to not honor obligations to British account holders, so he declared Iceland a terrorist country and seized the banks assets. This caused the banks to go under and the Icelandic economy to implode to the extent that if Russia hadn’t sent them billions of dollars, they would have literally starved, since they need to import food.

Yes, they asked the US and their friends in the EU for money first, but apparently only Vladimir Putin cared enough about Iceland’s impending famine to do anything about it. It’s times like these when you find out who your friends are. I imagine the Icelanders are feeling a lot warmer towards Russia these days. Perhaps Putin would like a nice naval base there?

Leaving aside, for just a moment, the absurdity of labeling Iceland a terrorist country, the problem is this: Icelanders are saying "prove it" with respect to the allegation that they threatened to not honor account withdrawals, and so far Gordon Brown hasn’t come up with proof.

The thing about Icelandic banks is that they were offshore banks. As a friend of mine in the industry said "this is where the City sent stuff that was too dubious even for them". Iceland made money by doing the deals that were, not dirt exactly, but highly highly speculative and leveraged and in some cases shady. (People go to offshore havens to dodge taxes and keep money private, after all.) Which is to say, the Brits knew these banks were shaky, because they were an extension of the city. So odds are, they just decided to preemptively seize the assets and shut them down, without even giving them a chance (or help.) This is also why Icelanders paid almost no tax, and lived well for years, because huge amounts of money were going into the country. Laissez faire stupidity works when you’re an island with a small population and huge amounts of money churn from foreigners.

Back to the "terrorism" charge. The side effect of the terrorism charge for a country is that a lot of people don’t want to, or can’t do business with you. They know it’s a BS charge, but, legally, you are on the damn list. So not only is Iceland’s economy in free fall, but they’re now partially cut off from cutting deals and doing business.

The British terrorism law is, in this respect, no worse than the US one or those of many other countries. You get on these lists by administrative or executive fiat, there is no way off the lists except political intervention, the criteria is completely arbitrary and opaque. Sort of like the no-fly list in the US, for ordinary people.

These laws were never meant to be used this way, of course. Gordon Brown did something with the law that its writers would have never intended. But that’s the problem—when you give someone a power, they will use it as they see fit, to the widest extent they can. Such laws are extremely dangerous and both the UK and US have a large number of them: laws that allow the executive to hold anyone without charge, to go to war without a declaration of war, to spy on whoever they want without a court reviewing the decision, and so on.

These laws have been repeatedly used and abused, and they will continue to be so. They need to be repealed. No free peoples worthy of the name give such unrestricted power to anyone.

In the meantime, if you want to help the Icelanders, there is a petition you can sign asking Gordon Brown to rescind the declaration of terrorist status. Given that even the stupidest person on the planet knows they aren’t terrorists, it’s sort of the least he can do. Then he should step down as PM, he’s clearly been in government far, far too long.

Related posts:

1. Dana Perino: No Terror Attack on USA in Bush Era
2. Shorter National Review: A Failed Terror Attack Would Never Happen on Bush’s Watch
3. Two Former Bush Counterterrorism Officials: Hyping Terror Threat Helps Terrorists
4. Obama Appoints Fox to Evaluate Terror Watchlist Henhouse
5. Bernie Sanders Puts Official Hold on Bernanke Nom

State foreclosures surge

A jump in December pushes monthly and year-end totals to their highest since 2005

A triple-digit increase in December foreclosures transformed Hawaii into a top 10 state for foreclosure activity and pushed monthly and year-end totals to their highest level since 2005.

RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, reported today that 1,534 Hawaii properties received foreclosure notices last month. The December tally, which equated to one in every 330 Hawaii properties in foreclosure, rose above the national rate of one per every 366 households, RealtyTrac said.

"The increases don't bode well for Hawaii," said Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac's marketing communications manager. "Hawaii hit No. 10 in December. I didn't think that would happen, and there are indications that the problems are more broad-based than I initially thought."

While the fallout from speculative buying during the last peak has hurt Hawaii regions where second-home markets were strong, the range of foreclosures shows that high unemployment, a struggling economy, adjustable-rate mortgage increases and balloon payments coming due are taking a toll, Blomquist said.

For the year, Hawaii foreclosures rose 183 percent to 9,002, the most since RealtyTrac began tracking the issue in April 2005, he said. One in every 56 Hawaii households experienced a foreclosure in 2009, Blomquist said.

Typically, numbers fall the month after a big spike; however, there's no sign that the problem will abate this year, he said.

"We won't see the eye-popping increases that we saw in 2009, but there will still be double-digit increases," Blomquist said.

During December and for the year, the neighbor islands continued to be hardest hit, he said.

"For the year, they are all above the national average," Blomquist said. "It might be because they tend to be more dependent on tourism and second-home buyers."

RealtyTrac identified similar trends in places like Idaho and Utah, which attracted second-home buyers during the last boom.

Still, the latest statistics show that Hawaii's foreclosure problems have spread beyond resort and second-home markets, he said.

By year's end, one in every 84 Honolulu households had experienced a foreclosure, RealtyTrac said. Ewa Beach posted the second highest level of foreclosures among Hawaii neighborhoods in December and for the year. Waipahu and Waianae joined Ewa Beach on both lists, and Waikiki and Kapolei were added to the year-end hot spots.

Georgia Roberson, real estate-owned director for Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, links high foreclosure rates in Kapolei to Ko Olina's declining second-home market, but said problems in Ewa Beach, Waianae and Waipahu are due in larger part to mortgages with rising interest rates or balloon payments. Tighter underwriting has hurt Oahu's condominium and condotel market, too, she said.

"I recently closed on three condominiums in Harbor Square and I've got a fourth pending," Roberson said. "When the market is down and financing is difficult, it's harder for sellers to find buyers."

While rising Hawaii foreclosures have driven pricing down in some neighborhoods and displaced residents and renters, some segments of the population are benefiting.

"I've already had four closings this year and three of them were distressed properties," said Howard Dinits, a Realtor with RE/MAX Resort Realty in Wailea, who specializes in Big Island and Maui sales.

Buyers like Rebecca and Dave Renfroe of Ottawa, Canada, are finding deals.

"We came to Maui about two years ago and decided that buying a second home here was out of our price range," Renfroe said.

"This time around, we found 16 distressed properties in our price range. It's all half off."

Dinits helped the couple find a bank-owned condominium in Lahaina for $250,000, less than half of the $560,000 that it sold for in 2005.

NO PLACE TO CALL HOME

Hawaii's monthly foreclosures over the past year,
including the year-over-year percentage gain:

2009

MONTH	TOTAL	CHANGE
December	1,534	+207.4%
November	872	+121.9%
October	925	+134.2%
September	969	+63.1%
August	869	+158.6%
July	990	+332.3%
June	706	+426.9%
May	816	+397.6%
April	684	+216.7%
March	724	+503.3%
February	537	+275.5%
January	337	+174.0%

2008

MONTH	TOTAL	CHANGE
December	499	+283.8%

Hawaii's December foreclosures by area,
including the year-over-year percentage gain:

AREA	TOTAL	CHANGE
Big Island	517	+345.7%
Maui	297	+175.0%
Kauai	77	+113.9%
Honolulu	643	+169.0%

Source: RealtyTrac

Obama to Ask For $90 Billion More Dollars

President Barack Obama will Thursday unveil a 90 billion dollar fee on 50 top finance firms to recoup taxpayer dollars used to bail out Wall Street, which is blamed for igniting the economic crisis.

The proposal, to be included in Obama’s next budget, will be rolled out as many of the firms rescued by public funds gear up to announce huge bonus payouts to top executives at a time of economic misery and high unemployment.

The scheme is designed to raise 90 billion dollars over 10 years for the public finances, a senior US official said on condition of anonymity.

Obama is determined to prevent Wall Street firms going back to business as usual and resuming high-risk lending practices and huge bets on mortgages and other instruments he blames for igniting the financial crisis.

The title of the initiative, the “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee,” makes it clear the administration is placing blame on the financial industry for the worst economic meltdown since the 1930s Great Depression.

Yet Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, insisted that “we’re not trying to pick a fight” with banks.

“It’s a very solid solution to make sure taxpayers are made whole,” she told MSNBC television.

The Obama administration has repeatedly said it will try to recoup the full cost of the 700-billion-dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which was also used to bail out crippled automakers.

A senior US official said the program, which has seen some money already paid back, would now effectively leave the government around 117 billion dollars out of pocket.

“It is in many ways offensive for those at our major financial institutions to suggest they can today afford excessive, often outlandish bonuses for their top executives” but cannot repay taxpayers, the official said.

“We feel this is a workable fee, we feel it supports the goal of putting greater burdens and less incentives to excessive size and excessive leverage.”

But the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents 100 top financial services firms, said the fee was a “strictly political.”

“Two-thirds of the TARP investment from banks has already been repaid with a large profit to the taxpayer,” said the Roundtable’s President and CEO Steve Bartlett.

“This proposed tax will do nothing more than stifle economic recovery and encumber more pressing concerns, such as covering new regulatory costs.”

The administration’s proposal, which requires congressional approval, will apply only to firms with over 50 billion dollars in assets, according to the official.

It will cover around 50 firms, including 35 that are US-based and 10 to 15 which are US subsidies of foreign companies. It will last 10 years or as long as necessary to recoup losses under TARP, the official said.

No small or community banks will be covered by the plan, the official said, adding that the scheme was being put together in such a way as to prevent the firms passing on the costs to consumers.

Even though auto firms General Motors and Chrysler also got money from the TARP fund, they will not have to pay the fee, the official added, warning financial firms not to make an issue of that omission.

In addition, not all the firms that will be targeted by the fee actually received TARP funds.

“I don’t think that it would be wise for them to try to suggest that living up to the letter of the law is somehow an unfair burden on them,” the official said.

The cost of the fee levied on the financial firms will be assessed according to a formula looking at their liabilities, total assets and equity and tier-one capital.

A bank fee may help the White House channel public anger over big bonus payments on Wall Street, as Americans face the reality of 10 percent unemployment and a slow economic recovery.

According to a Treasury report to Congress published on Monday, the government had committed 545 billion dollars of TARP funds as of January 6.

Of that figure, 372 billion dollars have been disbursed. Banks have already repaid 165.18 billion dollars of those funds, leaving 209 billion dollars outstanding.

With the bonus issue likely to explode into political controversy, the US government made clear on Monday it had no intention of imposing a one-off 2009 tax on individual bankers bonuses.

Asked if the United States was planning to follow moves unveiled this week by Britain and France for “community” taxes on bankers’ bonuses, Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said in an email: “Not at this time.”

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