| Banks a high risk in Allco fallout
AT LEAST nine domestic and overseas banks have hundreds of millions of dollars at risk with struggling Allco Finance Group and its related entities, according to banking industry figures. Australia's five largest banks - St George, ANZ, Commonwealth, Westpac and National Australia Bank - are all exposed to Allco-branded entities, but the precise value of individual exposures is being kept under wraps. Allco (aeq.ASX:Quote,News) shares have been driven lower by investor concerns about its debt levels. They plunged 26 per cent on Wednesday after Allco's largest shareholder, private company API, was forced to dump 46 per cent of its holding after receiving margin calls. API is understood to count key Allco executives, including executive chairman David Coe, as its largest shareholders.
Governor warns of money crises
Every time we have a surge in revenue, we take all that money and spend it, hoping and praying the next year we will have that much money or more," the governor said. "You can't tax your way out of this problem," Schwarzenegger added. "If we increase taxes every time we have a bump in the road, we'd be at 100% (tax rate). "It's necessary to fix the system." Schwarzenegger's reform proposal contains two basic components: A "rainy day" fund and an automatic trigger when a fiscal downturn hits in order to enact spending cuts. Because of the drop in state revenues linked to slumping real estate prices, Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency requiring budget cuts for the present fiscal year to be made by March. In addition, for the next fiscal year he has proposed budget cuts of roughly 10% across the board when calculated from what the normal increase would be.
Giants are America's Team for now
That's not supposed to happen to professional sports franchises out of the nation's largest and loudest market. New York is the ultimate overdog. Its pro teams are usually about as warm and cuddly as the Soviets' Big Red Machine was in Lake Placid way back when. George Steinbrenner had plenty to do with that. His version of Moneyball made the Yankees payroll look more like the gross national product of a First World country. Across the pro sports landscape, New York stood for an embarrassment of riches, an uneven playing field and a noisy pursuit of victory. So fans outside the metropolitan area were forever finding common ground on this point: Teams representing Gotham were to be booed on every possession and mocked for their Gordon Gekko mores. But these Giants? Good luck hating them.
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