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Warren Buffett's Berkshire will invest $5 billion on "cumulative perpetual" preferred stock in Bank of America. These shares will pay a 6% annual dividend. In addition Berkshire gets warrants giving it the right to purchase $5 billion in Bank of America common stock at $7.14 a share. The Bank of America share price was $7.63 on August 25, 2011. The warrants if exercized could leave Berkshire with 6.5% ownership stake in the bank. The deal comes as Bank of America's share price is under severe pressures in the financial market.

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Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal interviews Michael Morrell of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Mr Morrell has been at the CIA for 31 years and is a senior advisor to General Petraeus, new head of the CIA. Here he describes the efforts of the CIA and his advice to Gen. Petraeus.

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U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's speech at the annual Jackson Hole conference in August 2011.

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Bernanke's speech at the annual Fed Jackson Hole meeting put any future policy action off for the September meeting of the Fed's Open Market Committee, which will meet for 2 days to allow lengthy discussion of issues. He repeated his focus made in earlier statements that other actions are needed to reduce the headwinds facing the U.S., actions other than the Fed's monetary policy. He called for "good, proactive housing policy," which has been a major missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of the American economy. Specifically, "families with mortgage debt bigger than the value of their homes facing unusual financial hardship which is also hurting the banks." Martin Feldstein and other experts have repeatedly called for action to help homeowners under water since the mortgage financial crisis hit in 2008. And the government's response has been tepid at best. Most evaluations of the Home Affordable Modification program and other programs to help prevent foreclosures consider them a serious failure of the Obama administration. Higher unemployment has only increased the urgency for government action in this area and good proposals were made by Feldstein and other experts. On the deficit and debt issues Bernanke would like to see debt to GDP ratios "at least stable, or preferably, declining over time." He also cautions that this be done bearing in mind "the fragility of the current economic recovery." He says his estimate for the U.S. economy's growth rate is 0.7% annual rate for the second half, and 'looks likely to improve." His prediction is for inflation to settle at around 2%. His main concern is that the there will be "an erosion of skills and loss of attachment to the labor force" for the long term unemployed....

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The U.S. Dodd-Frank legislation has a provision requiring U.S.- listed oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to governments for access to mining and oil resources. The S.E.C. will decide how to implement this rule which goes into effect in 2012. This has a severe effect on the economies of developing countries as it siphons away significant part of revenues for the resources into the hands of government officials. From Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea in Africa, and in other parts of the world in Latin America and Asia, this is a serious problem and results in underdevelopment and retarded societies.

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S.E.C. Inspector General David Kotz says his office will put out a report on the destruction of probe related records at the S.E.C.. Darrell Flynn, an S.E.C. attorney alleged that the S.E.C. destroyed about 9000 files in clear violation of laws that probe records cannot be destroyed. He sought and obtained whistleblower protection. Senator Charles Grassley disclosed the accusations and asked the S.E.C. to explain the effect of this on investigations.