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Consumer spending rose in February, rebounding for the second month in row after falling for six straight months, according to government figures released Friday.

The Commerce Department said spending by individuals rose 0.2%, after increasing a revised 1.0% in January. February’s results were in line with a forecast from Economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

After adjusting for inflation, however, real personal spending declined 0.2%. In January, it rose 0.7%.

"It appears the majority of the declines in consumption for this cycle are behind us," Adam York, an economist at Wachovia Economics Group, wrote in a client note.

February’s spending uptick came as the Commerce Department reported personal income fell 0.2%. Income rose 0.4% in January, but last month’s decline marks a return to the recent downward trend as unemployment has risen.

The report also showed that personal savings declined $27.4 billion in February to $450.7 billion. The personal savings rate, expressed as a percentage of disposable personal income, fell to 4.2% from 4.4% in January.

"The personal saving rate remains near recent highs, as consumers attempt to rebuild their damaged balance sheets," said York instant cash advance. "However, weaker income growth is offsetting slower spending."

Consumer spending makes up nearly two thirds of the nation’s gross domestic product, which is the broadest measure of economic activity.

The government said Thursday that GDP fell at an annual rate of 6.3% during the final three months of 2008, with spending by consumers falling at an annual rate of 4.3%.

If the consumer spending figures reported Friday carry over into March’s report, GDP could see a 1.2% annualized gain during the first three months of 2009, according to Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

However, the outlook for consumer spending and second quarter GDP is less optimistic.

"We look for a renewed decline in the second quarter on the back of falling incomes and the lagged effect of the massive destruction of housing and other wealth," Shepherdson wrote in a research note. "The first quarter is a correction, not a recovery." 

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WASHINGTON — It was the second-worst month on record for sales of new houses. But last month still brought a long-awaited shred of good news for the battered building industry.

February’s results, while still far below last year’s levels, provided some hope that new house sales have finally hit bottom and the worst may be past. Prices, however, are likely to remain weak for months as builders continue to clear out their stock of unsold houses.

The Commerce Department said sales rose 4.7 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 337,000 from an upwardly revised January figure of 322,000.

Even after the revision to January’s sales results, that month remained the worst on records dating back to 1963.

Economists had expected February sales to fall to a pace of 300,000 units.

The report "is another faint but nonetheless encouraging sign that the economic slide may be moderating," wrote David Resler, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities.

Because the report reflects signed contracts to buy new houses rather than completed sales, it could reflect the early impact of a new, $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time buyers payday loans.

Despite the boost, February’s sales were still down by more than 40 percent from the same month a year earlier. The median sales price fell to $209,000, a record 18 percent drop from the same month last year.

Some analysts remain skeptical new house sales are starting to recover, saying the data are notoriously volatile. Until job losses stop mounting, "I don’t think you’re going to see good housing numbers," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight.

Nationally, the number of unsold houses fell to the lowest point since April 2002. But sales are so slow that it would take more than a year at the current sales pace to exhaust the supply.

"I’m hopeful the worst is over," said David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders. "I don’t think we’re quite out of the woods either. I think we will bounce around a bottom for a month or two."

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Romania got a 20 billion-euro ($27 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund, European Union and other lenders, the sixth eastern European nation to be bailed out as the region’s economies struggle to stay afloat.

About 13 billion euros will come from the IMF and the rest from the EU, World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Washington-based fund said in a statement.

The “package should more than cover Romania’s financing needs this year,” said Ozgur Yasar Guyuldar, an emerging markets strategist in Vienna at Raiffeisen Centrobank, in an e- mail today. “The IMF deal will certainly bring some discipline to the budget. I view this aid package as a big relief.”

The Balkan nation, which had the fastest-growing economy in the EU last year, is plunging into a recession and the central bank has little scope to lower interest rates to revive growth. The loan brings to more than $60 billion the total handed out to eastern Europe. Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Serbia have also sought bailouts to prevent defaults and aid banks.

“The objective of the policy package is to cushion the effects of the sharp drop in private capital inflows,” IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in the statement.

Market Reaction

Romania’s leu strengthened 0.3 percent against the euro today after weakening as much as 0.1 percent before the announcement. It was trading at 4.2825 to the euro as of 1:40 p.m. in Bucharest.

The benchmark BET stock index pared its earlier loss after the announcement and was trading unchanged at 1:40 p.m. after falling as much as 1.5 percent earlier. Romania’s credit risk, as measured by credit default swaps, fell to the lowest in four and a half months to 501.5 basis points after the announcement, according to CMA Datavision in London.

The loan agreement was not “an appeal to be saved,” said President Traian Basescu at a news conference in Bucharest. “Romania has made a preventative accord taking into account what could have happened in the future. It would be hard to explain in the future if we didn’t buckle our seatbelt through the accord with the IMF and the EU.”

He also said about 13 billion euros of the package will go directly to central bank foreign exchange reserves, which stood at 25.9 billion euros as of the end of February.

Budget Deficit

The loan from the IMF will be disbursed over the next two years with 5 billion euros coming in the next few months after approval by the executive board, Jeffrey Franks, head of the IMF negotiating team, told reporters in Bucharest today.

The government will target a budget deficit of 4.5 percent of gross domestic product this year, compared with 4.8 percent last year, even as the economic contraction cuts revenue, Franks said. The budget approved in December would have led to a deficit of about 9 percent of GDP, he said online payday advance.

The country, which had a record current-account deficit of about 13 percent of GDP last year, has predicted it will narrow to less than 10 percent this year as a weaker leu trims imports.

Romania requested talks with international organizations this month as exports suffer from waning demand in its key western European trading partners.

“Core measures under the program are designed to strengthen fiscal policy to reduce the government’s financing needs and improve long-term fiscal sustainability, thus preparing Romania for euro-zone entry,” the IMF release said. The country aims to adopt the European common currency in 2014.

Investment Deterred

Romania’s economy expanded 7.1 percent last year. Private lending soared as much as 64 percent, wages increased more than 20 percent on the year and rising foreign investment brought unemployment to a 16-year low.

This year, the international financial crisis has deterred new investment and persuaded foreign investors to withdraw cash, weakening the leu and restricting growth to an annual 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter. The government predicts the economy will shrink as much as 4 percent this year.

Prime Minister Emil Boc, elected in November to head a coalition of his Liberal Democrat Party and former communists from the Social Democrat Party, has said the government will ensure social protection for pensioners and the poor while cutting spending in other areas and raising some taxes.

The IMF said the agreement contains “explicit provisions to increase allocations for social programs.” It said the conditions placed on the government were “ambitious but realistic,” though state wages and pensions will not be cut.

SocGen Committed

Frederic Oudea, chief executive officer of Societe Generale SA which owns BRD-Groupe Societe Generale, Romania’s second- biggest bank, said the loan agreement is “a very good piece of news.”

“I would like to confirm our commitment in Romania in the long term,” Oudea said at a news conference in Bucharest today to commemorate 10 years of activity in the country. He also said he and representatives from nine other Romanian banks will hold talks with the IMF on Thursday about the financing package. He said his bank won’t repatriate funds from Romania.

The EBRD, in a separate news release, said about half of its 1 billion-euro contribution “will be dedicated to the financial sector and the rest invested across the broader economy, including in the corporate, energy and energy efficiency and national and municipal infrastructure sectors.”

Moody’s Investors Service, which affirmed Romania’s credit rating at Baa3 on March 20, said it would consider a downgrade if the country didn’t obtain aid.

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There is a gaping hole where one of the world’s tallest buildings is supposed to go up.

The planned 150-story Chicago Spire would be 2,000 feet tall if it gets built atop its completed foundation, ranking the tower the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the sixth-tallest among the world’s planned skyscrapers.

The Spire was supposed to be finished by 2012 and the Irish developer staged a global marketing campaign. Buyers snapped up a third of its 1,194 luxury condominiums priced between $750,000 and $40 million. Ty Warner, creator of the Beanie Baby toys, opted for the top-priced penthouse.

But after digging a 76-foot-deep hole and sinking caissons, construction on the twisting Spire — inspired, its famed architect Santiago Calatrava said, by swirling smoke from a Native American campfire — was stalled in January by the credit crisis that is stifling construction worldwide.

Chicago has long been a showcase for tall towers since the steel-framed skyscraper was invented, its history full of developers whose ambitions sometimes crashed on the rocks of economic slowdowns, said John Norquist, president of non-profit group The Congress for the New Urbanism.

For people living in the hundreds of new condominiums near the planned Spire, the unbuilt site “starts to look like a blight,” Norquist said.

“When everybody’s feeling buoyant and they all think they’re going to be billionaires overnight, that’s when these ‘biggest’ plans come about. If you get them going before the bust hits, they get built right away. Otherwise you’ve got to wait and sometimes they don’t get built at all,” he said.

Globally, work has been halted on 142, or 11 percent, of 1,324 skyscraper projects, including 29 of 301 U.S. projects, according to Emporis GmbH, a German company that tracks development no faxing payday loan. Work is stalled on the five tallest buildings on five continents, including the Spire — Emporis refers to these landmark buildings as “Babel” projects.

Work was stopped on the kilometer-tall (.6 mile) Nakheel Tower in Dubai, one of scores of construction projects idled in the former Gulf Arab boom town. A January HSBC report said $75 billion worth of projects in the United Arab Emirates were suspended or canceled. Contractors complain of not being paid.

Other tall towers on hold are Moscow’s Russia Tower and the Gran Torre Costanera office building in Santiago, Chile.

MASSIVE JOB LOSSES

The U.S. economic downturn has probably been felt most acutely in the construction industry. Some 2 million American construction workers are unemployed and the industry’s 21.4 percent jobless rate is the highest of any sector.

“Every month we see massive job loss in the construction industry and every month it gets worse … The construction industry is in a near depression,” said Terry O’Sullivan, head of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

The recently passed U.S. economic stimulus bill was expected to funnel $150 billion into building and repairing infrastructure, which the union said would employ 700,000 workers, for a while. The stimulus funding is viewed as only a downpayment on the $2.2 trillion engineers say is needed to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. Fewer workers are needed to perform maintenance than build from scratch, laborers say.

“If there’s no buildings going up, what do you do?” said James Connolly, a Laborers’ union manager. “Prepare yourself because it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” 

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A key federal program to support struggling auto suppliers isn’t helping many companies any more because of worsening economic conditions, particularly at Chrysler, an industry leader says.

Gerald Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, said yesterday Export Development Canada needs to loosen eligibility rules for a program under which suppliers can qualify for insurance on receivables.

"Under the current rules, EDC has to look at it under commercial terms, but conditions have deteriorated and the government needs to loosen the rules so it can continue to assist us," Fedchun told the Star.

"At the moment, they are not even writing any new insurance on Chrysler (business)."

The insurance has become a lifeline for many suppliers who are short of cash because of a plunge in auto demand.

They sometimes have to wait several months before automakers pay them, which leaves them short of critical capital.

The insurance program mitigates suppliers’ commercial risks so they can expand sales and motivate banks to extend more working capital.

Auto-parts makers have been struggling for years because of price pressures from automakers and rising production costs for materials and energy.

But many of them are now starving for cash because of the crash in the North American auto market during the past six months.

That has led to the temporary shutdown of many assembly plants, much lower demand for parts and an industry cash crisis.

"EDC has been good to us but companies can’t get insurance now because the risk factor has increased in view of the market," Fedchun said fast payday loans.

EDC spokesperson Phil Taylor said the self-funding Crown corporation is trying to do more for domestic suppliers while maintaining commercial principles on creditworthiness and business viability.

"We have to go to the global bond market like others," he said. "Having said that, we take a longer term view on price risk over a number of years rather than a couple of quarters. And we are doing more while others recede."

Ottawa says EDC provided a total of $4.2 billion in commercial assistance through financing and insurance to nearly 600 companies in the auto industry last year.

Insurance for receivables accounted for about $3.2 billion.

EDC has provided an additional $70 million in new coverage this year, which could support up to $28 million in new sales.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Treasury Department announced about $5 billion (U.S.) in aid for the American auto parts industry, including a similar insurance program to the one Canada started last year.

Industry analysts have warned that if some auto suppliers fail, it would trigger a domino effect through the sector that could hold up other parts operations and major assembly plants.

GM and Chrysler have already received billions of dollars in loans from Washington and are also seeking aid packages from the Canadian and Ontario governments.

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Colombia’s central bank will probably cut its benchmark rate for a fourth straight month today in an effort to revive economic growth, Finance Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, a member of the rate-setting committee, said last night.

“From my point of view everyone agrees on reducing the interest rate and the discussion is just over what the number will be in terms of basis points,” Zuluaga said in an interview at his office in Bogota.

Central bank chief Jose Dario Uribe will reduce the interbank rate by a full point to 7 percent, according to 16 of 30 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The other analysts forecast cuts ranging from a quarter point to three-quarters of a point.

Latin America’s fifth-biggest economy may have expanded at the slowest pace in almost seven years in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, while annual inflation has slowed for four consecutive months since reaching the fastest pace since 2002.

“The bank is now focused on propping up economic growth and limiting unemployment,” said David Duarte, a Latin America analyst at 4Cast Inc. in New York. “It has been clear it’s no longer worried about inflation.”

After half-point cuts in December and January, the board last month slashed the overnight rate by a full point, the biggest reduction in almost seven years.

Policy makers, while expressing concern that the economy was slowing more than expected, said the cut didn’t imply similar future reductions, according to the minutes of the Feb. 27 meeting posted on the bank’s Web site March 13.

Inflation Expectations

“The main concern now is how to push the economy because inflation expectations are under control,” Zuluaga said yesterday. “The external signs of the world economy and the local signs of economic growth are very low.”

Colombia’s central bank last cut interest rates at four straight meetings in 2002, when policy makers sought to avert a recession and cut a double-digit unemployment rate amid tame inflation.

Since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, increased bank lending has fueled an expansion of consumer spending that helped accelerate economic growth to 7.5 percent in 2007, the fastest pace in almost three decades.

The bank pushed up borrowing costs to a seven-year high of 10 percent in 2008, which helped check inflation fast cash loans. Now, the global credit crisis has begun to stifle Colombia’s growth, as exports to the U.S. and neighboring Venezuela slow.

Growth Outlook

Bank chief Uribe has said the time is right to lower rates. Plunging industrial output led the central bank to say economic growth in 2009 could slow to between 1 percent and 2 percent, down from its original 5 percent estimate.

Zuluaga, who also is president of the seven-member bank board, yesterday called on the central bank to continue its “expansionary” policy on lending rates at its monthly board meeting tomorrow.

Industrial production has declined for six straight months while retail sales have fallen for five months.

Industrial output fell 10.7 percent in January after dropping 13 percent in November, the biggest decline since June 1999, when an economic and banking crisis shuttered lenders and led Colombia’s government to nationalize several banks. Retail sales slipped 4.5 percent in January.

Zuluaga said the economy will expand this year. Still, in April the government will probably revise its estimate for 3 percent gross domestic product growth after analyzing data that come out next week, he said.

The April revision of gross domestic product likely will be the final change in growth numbers, Zuluaga said.

Peso Rally

“The central bank will cut rates further during 2009 irrespective of the shape of the world or domestic economy and the level of risk aversion,” said Alberto Bernal, head of fixed-income research at Bulltick Securities Inc., who expects the bank to cut the rate to 5.5 percent by year-end.

This month’s rally in the peso may make it easier for the bank to reduce rates following concern last month that the currency’s 12 percent decline in the first two months of 2009 would ignite inflation, Bernal said.

Consumer price increases slowed to an annual rate of 6.47 in February, down from a peak of 7.94 percent in October. The central bank is targeting an annual inflation rate of 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent this year.

The peso has rallied 11 percent this month to 2,338.48 per dollar.

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Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of mining and construction equipment, has seen its sales wither as the sluggish world economy and the credit crisis weaken demand for its products, used to build everything from houses to highways. The company had expanded dramatically in recent years, helped by a building boom in developing countries.

In response to the worsening conditions, Caterpillar in January announced job cuts that will ultimately eliminate 20,000 positions. It also said it would slash executive compensation by up to 50 percent and offer buyouts to about 25,000 U.S.-based employees. Caterpillar, which employs about 112,000 people worldwide, said it had imposed a global hiring freeze.

In the latest cuts, the Peoria, Ill.-based company said 2,365 support and management workers had been notified of layoffs expected to last at least six months — including 245 announced previously — and 89 workers will be let go permanently.

Among the affected workers are 1,726 at plants in Illinois. They include 911 workers at a plant in East Peoria that makes track-type tractors and pipelayers and 815 at a factory in Aurora that produces hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders. Caterpillar notified the employees Tuesday of the layoffs, expected to last at least six months starting in June.

In Indiana, Caterpillar notified 439 employees at its large- engine factory in Lafayette of layoffs effective May 29, also expected to last at least six months. The plant makes diesel engines for boats, locomotives and other applications.

Caterpillar notified 89 employees at its Jefferson, Ga., fuel systems plant that they would be laid off permanently when the company closes the facility, expected by the end of June faxless payday loan.

Work currently done at the plant will be shifted to factories in Thomasville, Ga., and Pontiac, Ill.

Also in Georgia, Caterpillar said it had notified 200 employees at a plant in Griffin, where the company makes generators, engines and oil service units, of layoffs scheduled to begin in May.

Meanwhile, the company has implemented so-called rolling layoffs, which vary in duration, at plants across the country and around the world, according to Jim Dugan, a Caterpillar spokesman.

Caterpillar said more layoffs may be needed as the year continues, depending on business conditions.

In January, Caterpillar said its earnings plunged 32 percent in the last three months of 2008, and that it had lowered its 2009 profit expectations. Demand plummeted at the end of the year, pulled down by slumping commodity prices, tight credit markets and a decline in house building.

It said a first-quarter loss is possible as costs may outstrip falling orders.

In February, Caterpillar said it planned to offer early retirement to about 2,000 production workers.

The White House tried Tuesday to sound a positive note despite the news of more layoffs at Caterpillar.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House was confident the stimulus bill will create opportunities for Caterpillar and other companies because of the many construction projects on which states will be breaking ground.

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Anger over $165 million in bonuses doled out to American International Group senior employees reached a fevered pitch on Monday, prompting the Obama administration to vow to recoup the money and a New York prosecutor to subpoena the firm for recipients’ names.

President Obama said Monday that he has asked Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to use the government’s role as a majority owner of the troubled insurance company and "every legal avenue" to stop the bonuses.

"It’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses," Obama said.

But the bonuses — set out in contracts made before the government became so deeply involved in the company — would be hard to reverse.

In fact, a Treasury official confirmed to CNNMoney.com that the government can’t stop the bonuses from going to employees. But it could try to recoup the money.

Treasury plans to make $30 billion in bailout funds pledged on March 2 contingent on a promise by AIG to reimburse the government an extra $165 million for the bonuses, according to the Treasury official.

The government has stepped in four times to help AIG through $170 billion in bailout packages, in large part because it had issued risky credit default swaps — a kind of insurance for bad loans made by banks and investment companies.

It remains to be seen how much of those billions the government will be able to get back.

"If the market stabilizes, there could be valuable assets at the end of the day, but there’s a lot of ifs," said Rob Haines, an analyst with research firm CreditSights.

For its part, AIG said it had no plans to try to rescind the bonuses. An AIG spokesman on Monday referred to a letter Chief Executive Edward Liddy wrote to Geithner last week saying that he found the bonuses "distasteful" but the company "must proceed with them."

‘Taxpayers have a right to know’

Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that he planned to subpoena AIG for details of the employee bonuses.

"We believe the taxpayers have a right to know what’s happening to their money," said Cuomo, who said he had sent AIG a letter Monday seeking a list of employees who received bonuses creditreport.

AIG told the attorney general’s office that the checks were issued on Friday, and "their point is there’s nothing you can do," Cuomo said.

After weeks of criticism and a weekend of smackdowns, AIG on Sunday finally revealed which firms received billions in federal bailout money, which included several European institutions and two big Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Merrill Lynch.

AIG, which has avoided bankruptcy because of taxpayer funding, said it released the list of trading partners or counterparties, along with the sums they received, because the company "recognizes the importance of upholding a high degree of transparency with respect to the use of public funds." AIG said it made the announcement after consulting with the Federal Reserve, which has led the bailout of the company.

The pressure on AIG is likely to only get worse in coming days.

Liddy, who was brought in as CEO in September after the government’s first bailout, is expected to testify before a House Financial Services subcommittee on Wednesday.

"Because the federal government has about an 80% stake in the company, AIG must be open and transparent about how it spends taxpayers’ money," subcommittee Chairman Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., said in a statement. "These counterparties and the recent bonuses, among other topics, will certainly be important issues that my colleagues and I intend to investigate further at the hearing."

AIG spokesman Nicholas Ashooh said Liddy plans to use his appearance on Capitol Hill to explain, among other things, AIG’s progress untangling its credit default swaps and its plans to sell companies and securities to pay back the government.

The panel will also hear from Scott Polakoff, acting director of the Office of Thrift Supervision; Joel Ario, the Pennsylvania insurance commissioner; and Rodney Clark, a director in charge of Standard & Poor’s insurance ratings. 

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Finance chiefs from the Group of 20 vowed to work together to clean up the toxic assets that helped trigger the financial crisis and led banks to rack up more than $1 trillion in losses.

Officials meeting near London this weekend outlined guidelines on how governments should rid banks of distressed securities that have devastated companies from Citigroup Inc. to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. With the G-20 calling the fight its “key priority,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed in an interview to “move quickly.”

The commitment, made three weeks before G-20 leaders gather in London, comes as investors demand faster action in the face of turmoil that’s showing few signs of abating. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index has dropped 35 percent this year and a lack of lending is pushing the global economy deeper into its worst recession in six decades.

“Markets are looking to policy makers around the world to move from the recognition and design stages to implementation, and to do so in a coordinated, or at least correlated, fashion,” Mohamed El-Erian, the co-chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport, California, said in an interview. “Tackling toxic assets is a necessary condition for sustainable progress.”

New Powers

Separately, the Obama administration may give the Federal Reserve new powers to impose tougher capital requirements for large banks, the Wall Street Journal said today, citing people familiar with the matter.

Governments have struggled to tackle toxic assets head on, allowing concern to seep through markets that banks still haven’t revealed all their exposure.

The Bush administration’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program was redirected away from buying the tainted securities and Geithner has disappointed investors by not giving details of a promised $1 trillion plan.

Germany has had several false starts and Barclays Plc is so hesitant about the terms of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s asset guarantee program that it still hasn’t signed up.

“There have been too many promises already and investors now want to see concrete actions getting rapidly underway,” said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit MIB in London. Citigroup, Commerzbank AG and Lloyds Banking Group have lost more than half their value this year

Substantial Recovery

Speaking after their talks, officials conceded that until banks are cleansed and can start lending again, attempts to revive growth by cutting interest rates and taxes would pack little punch.

“We aren’t going to have a substantial recovery in the real economy until we solve the bank issue,” Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in an interview with CBS Corp. that aired yesterday the biggest risk to an economic recovery is a shortage of “political will.”

Action may be imminent. Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering taking over Germany’s non-performing assets until they mature, according to three people familiar with the proposal. Geithner will this week roll out enough information on his public-private partnership plan for investors to gauge their interest in it.

“We have and expect to see a lot of support for this program” among potential buyers of the assets, he said in an interview after the Horsham talks.

Global Reach

To govern such programs, the G-20 proposed a dozen principles for authorities to follow with the hope that a united front would avoid distorting capital flows or sparking protectionism. The parameters are meant to guide a “cooperative and consistent approach by national authorities no fax payday loans.”

“Financial institutions are global in their reach so it’s important governments adopt a common approach,” said Daniel Price, President George W. Bush’s G-20 negotiator and now senior partner for global issues at Sidley Austin LLP in Washington.

Among the guidelines: shareholders should be exposed by the “maximum possible” to losses or risks prior to a government intervening. There should also be flexibility when judging which assets can be aided and it should be clear how they are valued. Credit rating companies, hedge funds, and credit derivatives markets will be subjected to greater oversight.

Help

The parameters were drawn up to guide a “cooperative and consistent approach by national authorities,” the G-20 statement said.

Companies that receive help should be run according to business principles and agree to impose conditions on executive compensation. Governments should provide only temporary assistance and spell out exit strategies.

“The key question is whether this framework is detailed and concrete enough to reassure markets that the normalization of banking systems is at hand,” said Annunziata.

As Obama embarks on a revamp of U.S. financial rules, Geithner also wants the Fed to have authority to look broadly at markets to spot signs of systemic risk, such as huge bets made by investment banks on mortgage debt, the Wall Street Journal said.

The G-20 also pledged a “sustained effort” to end the worldwide recession, setting aside transatlantic differences over whether that should include more fiscal stimulus as the U.S. wants.

Data will this week show U.S. factories and home builders scaled back even more last month and European industrial production dropped the most on record in January, according to surveys of economists by Bloomberg News.

Necessary Action

“We are prepared to take whatever action is necessary to ensure growth is restored and we are committed to do that for however long it takes,” said U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling.

The International Monetary Fund will monitor budget policies and judge if more is needed to be done after euro- region finance ministers said they had spent enough and wanted to preserve fiscal discipline.

“I was worried we wouldn’t arrive at an agreement, but we all agreed that the re-launch has to go ahead on four wheels,” said France’s Christine Lagarde.

The IMF was told it will have its resources at least doubled to $500 billion after being inundated with loan requests from Pakistan to Hungary.

Influence at IMF

Smaller countries will be granted more say in how it is run within two years and its next boss will be selected by an “open” process and not automatically a European, the G-20 said.

In a bid to prevent future crises, the officials said they would strengthen ties between their individual banking supervisors. The financial system will also have more curbs introduced to ensure regulations “dampen rather than amplify economic cycles.” Options include buffers that limit leverage and encourage banks to save capital in good times.

“All in all, the Horsham statement should be regarded as a positive sign of progress,” said Jim O’Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London. It “gives hope that the G-20 leaders will be able to present a common stance in responding to the extraordinary challenges.”

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A New York state judge said Friday he will decide within a week whether Bank of America Corp. has to turn over a list of performance bonuses given to the 200 highest-paid employees of Merrill Lynch & Co.

State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried didn’t indicate how he would rule, but during the court hearing, he questioned Bank of America’s claim that salary information was a trade secret and suggested he was unlikely to order confidentiality merely to save Merrill Lynch workers from a public shaming payday loans for bad credit.

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