"I hope they’re not more of the same. I hope you’re smarter than that"
US senator Richard Shelby introduces Tim Geithner. Unfortunately the proposals the US Treasury secretary introduced failed to live up to Shelby’s expectations (see Groundhog day: Geithner botches another bailout)
"This is the time to pick off the plums. I’m not a big believer in buying whole companies. Very few large companies hold only great assets, and I only want to buy great assets"
Eike Batista, Brazil’s richest man, hopes to harvest some juicy fruit from the downturn
(see Batista tries to maintain his X factor)
"The behaviour in the Royal Bank of Scotland, where very substantial additional pension awards were given, is something that makes me angry and will make the public of the country angry"
Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, vents his anger over Sir Fred Goodwin’s retirement package. But the War of Sir Fred’s Pension was a mere sideshow to the government’s £325 billion insurance of RBS’s toxic assets
"We have capital adequacy ratios in our system that would make western banks weep with envy. Our problem is that banks are not lending"
Korn Chatikavanij, Thailand’s new finance minister, shows how symptoms of the credit crunch continue to spread
(see Korn grapples with Thailand’s downturn)
"The vast majority of funds were disproportionately distributed to a small number of individuals.