A House panel on Thursday planned to examine the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations oversight of the auto industry in the latest congressional hearing linked to Toyotas recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide. Safety groups have accused NHTSA of being too cozy with the Japanese automaker while lacking the resources to test for vehicle problems that could be electronic, not mechanical.
“NHTSA has been viewed by the motor vehicle industry for years as a lapdog, not a watchdog,” Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator under President Jimmy Carter, said in prepared testimony.
Congress is considering new auto industry reforms following - - - - >

The International Air Transport Association said carriers began bouncing back late last year, and have continued to see stronger demand after posting record losses during the global economic crisis. The group also lowered its 2009 loss estimate to $9.4 billion from $11 billion because of the year-end rally.
“We are starting to see some blue skies ahead of us,” said IATA chief executive Giovanni Bisignani.
The group, which represents 240 airline companies worldwide, had predicted in December that 2010 losses would total $5.6 billion because of the “extraordinarily low” yields airlines are generating - the average price someone pays to fly one - - - - >

MetLife won an accord to split most declines on $1 billion in commercial mortgages included in the $15.5 billion purchase of the AIG unit, according to a MetLife regulatory filing and the companys chief financial officer. A corporate vehicle owned by the Fed and New York-based AIG will use MetLife stock gained in the sale to pay for future real estate losses, said two people with knowledge of the arrangement.
AIGs Japan mortgage holdings were deemed a “more troubled asset” by MetLife, which is also indemnified from - - - - >

The data was stolen by a former information technology employee about three years ago, the Geneva-based unit of HSBC said today in a statement. French authorities, which seized the data, have told their Swiss counterparts that they wont use the information “inappropriately,” the bank said.
“The bank does not believe that the stolen data has or will allow any third party to access any client account,” HSBC said in the statement. The accounts were all opened before October 2006, the bank said.
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Rising home prices and an improving economy will spark a modest rebound this year in U.S. home equity lending, the driver of about 2 percent of consumer spending in the first half of the decade. This time around, lenders and homeowners will be more cautious about converting their equity to cash, muting any boost to the economy after the worst slump since the Great Depression, said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst with Bankrate.com.
“Home equity borrowing wont be the economic crutch it was a few years ago,” - - - - >

“The health-care system has billions of dollars that should go to patient care and theyre lost each and every year to fraud, to abuse, to massive subsidies that line the pockets of the insurance industry,” he said yesterday at a high school in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Missouri.
Obama is trying to rally public support for the biggest changes to U.S. health care in 45 years in the face of unanimous Republican opposition. He said his proposals show there are ways to pay for - - - - >

The European Commission said it would ask other airlines whether freeing up slots at London Heathrow, London Gatwick and New Yorks John F. Kennnedy airports would be enough to create more competition and entice rivals to start new routes from those airports to New York, Boston, Dallas and Miami.
If rivals are supportive, regulators said they would move to make the three airlines offer legally binding and drop an antitrust case that could have racked up millions of euros (dollars) in fines.
One rival, Virgin Atlantic, said the airlines offer was “woefully inadequate in counteracting the anticompetitive harm of a combined BA/AA,” - - - - >

Northern Rock said it posted a profit of 466.7 million pounds ($696 million) in the second half, following a loss of 724.2 million in the first half of 2009.
For the full year, Northern Rock reported a pretax loss of 257.5 million pounds ($384 million), down from a loss of 1.355 billion pounds in the previous year.
Loan loss impairments rose to 1.05 billion pounds from 894 million pounds in 2008.
“Loan loss impairment charges are expected to remain high during 2010, relative to historic norms, but below the level recorded in 2009,” the company said.
The results were the last for the old - - - - >

Yang and many other young Chinese are finding their aspirations thwarted by an overheated property market that is enriching already wealthy speculators, local officials and other Communist Party allies.
Its a hard reality for a generation that views home ownership as a given after reforms more than a decade ago created a housing market open to the masses. Its also a challenge for leaders whose reliance on rising property values and land sales to property developers risks letting the market spiral out of control.
“I sigh at every fancy apartment building I see on the way to work everyday, but that wont - - - - >

AIGs $78 billion of bonds surged to 18-month highs since Feb. 26, the last trading day before the insurer disclosed the first of the two divestitures, according to Bloomberg data. The New York-based firms debt is the best performer this month through yesterday on Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. Its subordinated debt jumped as much as 13 cents on the dollar.
The insurer, once the worlds largest, said March 1 it was selling AIA Group Ltd. to Prudential Plc for $35.5 billion. A week later, MetLife - - - - >