In an anticipated move, the Fed cut interest rates another half point today.  Spurred to action by news that the economy had slowed significantly in the final three months of 2007, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that “financial markets remain under considerable stress” in a written statement.

Read the full article here on Yahoo Business.

Commentary by Jonathan Weil on the Bloomberg Website has suggested that the SEC’s staff has granted the subprime-lending industry a huge exemption from the normal rules for off-balance-sheet accounting.

According to BusinessWeek Online, the FBI has opened probes into alleged accounting fraud, insider trading and concerns over loan securitization at 14 companies.

According to Yahoo Finance, Marsh & McLennan has named former ACE Ltd. CEO Brian Duperreault as Chief Executive.

Prior to taking this new job, Duperreault served as CEO of ACE Limited, the Bermuda based insurer Marsh & McLennan helped found in 1985.  Prior to ACE, Duperreault was with AIG for more than 20 years.

You can read the full article here on Yahoo Finance.

US shares pushed slightly higher on Monday, anticipating a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in response to the disappointing new home sales report. The report said that the sales of new homes dropped by 4.7 percent in December, with an overall drop of 26.4 percent in 2007 (when compared with 2006).

As reported at CNNMoney.Com, New York authorities are suing 26 banks and two accounting firms that did business with Countrywide Financial, saying the companies failed to ensure the company was being honest with investors.

US District Judge Peter Dorsey rejected a motion filed by General Electric (GE) to prevent a high ranking attorney’s lawsuit from achieving class action status.

Dorsey rejected the argument from GE that Schaefer cannot lead a class action lawsuit because she had access to confidential client information while employed with GE. Dorsey’s ruling did state, however that "If at any point during discovery, the defendants learn and can demonstrate that plaintiff is inappropriately using confidential client confidences in asserting her claims or representing the class, the court may reconsider the propriety of plaintiff's class allegations at that time."

As reported in National Underwriter Life & Health, the US Treasury Department and two of its offshoots have recommended that life insurers check to be sure that they have enough capital to pay claims during a severe influenza epidemic.

Congressional leaders have reached a deal for US Taxpayers and businesses to receive rebates as an effort to stimulate the economy.

Executives at Societe Generale, a Paris based bank, reported that they had uncovered a massive fraud perpetrated by a trader who acted alone. Detected over the weekend, the trader had misled investors in 2007 and 2008 through a “scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions.”  The total fraud was $7.14 billion.

Experts are predicting that the legal and regulatory issues being fueled by the current subprime mortgage meltdown will dwarf the problems that followed the technology stock bust and the Enron and Worldcom problems. Read the entire article here in the New York Times.

This is a three minute excerpt from the Diversity - Do We Walk the Talk Panel at the 2007 PLUS International Conference.  The question revolves around attracting the bright young college students of today to the insurance industry.  The question is answered by Harold Gray, Director of the Center for Insurance Education, Howard University.

An appeals court in Fresno, California overturned a $1.5 million verdict awarded to a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers in what employers called a camaraderie-building exercise.

Information about the original decision on this case can be found at this link, and the updated article on the appeal can be found in the Seattle Times.

A group of former employees of the Eastman Kodak Company have filed a class action lawsuit seeking nearly 500 million dollars against Morgan Stanley on the grounds that the broker gave them bad advice to retire early and promised them financial security that never materialized.

Four employees are named as plaintiffs, however the member class could number as many as 1,000.

In addition to this class action lawsuit, an arbitration claim making similar allegations on behalf of another 16 former Kodak employees was filed at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s arbitration forum.

Merrill Lynch has posted a fourth quarter loss of nearly $10 Billion, resulting from its stake in mortgage backed securities as well as adjustments to hedge positions on them.