LyrArc Article Gist
The shares of Belgium's Dexia bank dropped 22% on October 4, 2011, to 1.01 euros. Dexia has large holdings of sovereign debt- 21 billion euros of debt from troubled eurozone countries. Of this 3.8 billion euros is in Greek bonds, 13.4 billion euros in Italian bonds. The total Dexia holdings of Greek, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and Irish debt is about 3 times the book value of its equity. After the 2008 crisis Dexia attempted to change to a retail bank based in Belgium and Turkey. But customer deposits are only 25% of its liabilities, making Dexia heavily dependent on issuing covered bonds which are difficult to issue because of the large debt from troubled countries. The response of the Belgian and French governments on October 4-5 is to breakup Dexia. The breakup plan includes selling off the asset management business and DenizBank, its retail bank in Turkey. Other actions include selling Paris based public finance Dexia Municipal Agency to French savings banks Caisse des Depots & Consignations, and La Banque Postale. The 21 billion euros of bonds from troubled eurozone countries will be placed in a "bad bank" with guarantees from Belgian and French governments. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
About 100 Special Economic Zones operate in India. The government has approved 478 new SEZ's. Investment in these zones is expected to double to $66 billion by 2012, according to India's Commerce Ministry. The government is encouraging the SEZ's to increase manufacturing from 17% of the economy to 22% of the economy.

LyrArc Article Gist
Lally Weymouth of the Washigton Post, interviews Dilma Rousseff, the newly elected President of Brazil. Her plans to invest in infrastructure needs, housing needs, improving the quality of public health care, improving public safety. The new Social Fund will use governmet resources from the oil find to invest in education, health care, science and technology.