Banks to occupy Times Square

<p> </p><blockquote>Consumers who visit New York City during the holiday season might be surprised to see messages from a community bank trade group displayed on one of the jumbo screens in Times Square. It's not a mistake or prank, however. Rather, the Independent Community Bankers of America, or ICBA, is taking its "Go Local Main Street" message to Wall Street, featuring an hourly community bank–focused message on the CBS Spectacular jumbo screen, according to an ICBA announcement. The message encourages consumers to "make a statement" by choosing a community bank. Chris Lorence, ICBA executive vice president, said in the announcement the association is "thrilled to take its positive Main Street message to Wall Street." "ICBA's goal in producing the Jumbotron messaging is to capture consumers' attention in a spectacular forum like Time Square, and remind them that they have a choice when it comes to their banking relationship. If they want to do something about bad banking, they can go local with their community bank and keep their hard earned money at home where they live, work and worship," Lorence said. The ICBA message, slated to run until Jan. 1, 2012, is part of a public relations campaign the association launched in October. The campaign encourages consumers to bank locally with a community bank, so they can "enjoy a relationship-based banking experience, superior customer service and the pride that comes with reinvesting in one's community," the association said. The campaign also encourages consumers to shop and dine locally, drawing attention to community self-reliance and, at the same time, taking aim at larger national banks and corporations. "Community banks reinvest in ways that drive their local economy," the ICBA said. "They create jobs by helping small business owners finance their entrepreneurial endeavors on Main Street, and they enable families to purchase homes and cars, finance college educations and build financial security."</blockquote>

Banks to occupy Times Square

  Consumers who visit New York City during the holiday season might be surprised to see messages from a community bank trade group displayed...

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police used a mounted patrol and pepper spray to clear the street near a JP Morgan Chase branch adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

<p><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ffffff;">It was a long, tense day at many Oregon banks Thursday as the Occupy Portland protesters staged their "N17" day of protest against the financial industry. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The event extended beyond Portland to bank branches in Eugene, Corvallis, even The Dalles. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The largely light-hearted protests of earlier in the day gave way to a couple of scary moments late in the afternoon. First, </span><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Then officers briefly rushed the crowd before the situation calmed again. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Bankers had best get used to the attention. The Occupy protesters vow to keep the pressure on, reasoning that in the financial industry they've found a high-value target that resonates with a broad swath of American society. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"This was a kickoff for sure," said Kari Koch, N17 spokeswoman. "We want to really start connecting Occupy Portland with the issues that affect people's everyday lives, things like foreclosures, the bank bailout and the industry's clout with Washington." </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /></p><div style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 15px; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #f1f1f1; border-top-width: 4px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 16px; color: #333333; width: 80px; float: right; border-color: #666666; border-style: solid; padding: 12px;"><div style="background-image: url(http://media.oregonlive.com/portland_impact/images/occupy.png); background-attachment: scroll; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; height: 140px; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"> </div><div style="padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 0pt; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; text-indent: -10px; margin: 0px;">» <a href="http://orne.ws/occupylive" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">N17 live coverage</a></div><div style="padding-top: 0pt; padding-right: 0pt; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 10px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin: 0px;">Map, live updates and Twitter feeds</div><div style="padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 0pt; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; text-indent: -10px; margin: 0px;">» <a href="http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/occupy%20portland/posts.html" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">All stories</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 0pt; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; text-indent: -10px; margin: 0px;">» <a href="http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/occupy%20portland/photos.html" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">All photos</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 0pt; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 10px; text-indent: -10px; margin: 0px;">» <a href="http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/occupy%20portland/videos.html" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">All videos</a></div></div><p><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Don Pearson, regional president of Wells Fargo in Portland, rejects the notion that his industry is culpable for any of the nation's economic misfortunes. His bank is only lending money in part to help the community, he said. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Activists are betting that Americans, gripped by a level of economic insecurity unprecedented in recent times, take a dimmer view of the big banks. People who may have no sympathy for bedraggled protesters taking over a city park may well know someone who lost a home to foreclosure or a college grad who is looking for work, living with her parents and struggling to pay off student debt. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"The anger and outrage is something broadly shared by both the left and the right," said Angela Martin, an anti-foreclosure activist with a labor-backed group, Our Oregon. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The industry bashing comes at a time the financial sector is still trying to regain its footing after one of the greatest upheavals in American business history. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">On Wall Street, some of the nation's biggest banks drove themselves to the brink of ruin selling and buying mortgage-backed securities of dubious value. At a local level, banks bet big on the housing market devoting huge shares of their loan portfolios to developers and builders. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Congress enabled it all by pushing the industry to make more mortgage loans to people of more meager financial means. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">It all blew up in 2007 and 2008 when the housing boom turned to bust. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen prevailed on Congress to approve an unprecedented bailout of the biggest banks. Hundreds of banks, including six in Oregon, failed. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /></p><div class="embeddedMedia entry_widget_large entry_widget_left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; width: 380px !important; float: left; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;"><span class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-photo" style="display: inline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><span class="adv-video" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; display: block; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 339px; max-width: 380px; position: relative; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px;"><a class="bc_video" href="http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/thursdays_n17_action_against_p.html" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; display: block; position: relative; width: auto; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><img alt="Occupy Portland: N17 A long day for police and protesters" class="adv-photo" src="http://brightcove01.brightcove.com/7/260825828001/260825828001_1281999509001_vs-1281972061001.jpg?pubId=260825828001" style="vertical-align: bottom; max-width: 380px; display: inline; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" width="380" /></a><span class="video-data" style="padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 5px; display: block; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: #d5d5d5; border-bottom-color: #d5d5d5; border-left-color: #d5d5d5; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; font-size: 10px; margin: 0px;"><span class="title" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.55em; margin-left: 0px; display: block; width: auto; line-height: 1.35em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://videos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2011/11/occupy_portland_n17_a_long_day.html" style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; font-size: 9pt; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" target="_blank">Occupy Portland: N17 A long day for police and protesters</a></span><span class="caption" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 3px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; clear: both; display: block; line-height: 1.25em; padding: 0px;">A long day for Portland police as they start their day with peaceful arrests. As the day drags on the peaceful crowd of protesters becomes more agitated and finally at commute time the crowd near Pioneer Square pushes onto the MAX tracks and police use pepper spray to push them back.</span><span class="view" style="margin-top: 7px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; display: block; font-size: 8.5pt; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/thursdays_n17_action_against_p.html" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 24px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; color: #305cb6; text-decoration: none; background-image: url(http://media.oregonlive.com/design/baseline/img/icons/icon_video_small.gif); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; margin: 0px;">Watch video</a></span></span></span></span></div><p><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Meanwhile, average citizens lost jobs, benefits, pensions and homes. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Three years since the economy hit bottom, the pain continues. The housing industry remains in the dump and the foreclosure crisis continues to haunt the economy. More than 38,000 Oregonians are currently in foreclosure or are late on their mortgage payments. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">One in four homeowners – about 125,000 in all – owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth, according to Economic Fairness Oregon. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">It was against this backdrop that Bank of America instituted its disastrous $5 ATM fee last month, a move so widely condemned that the bank quickly reversed course. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"One of the things banks have done to themselves is to try to earn their income through penalties, fines and fees," said David Bennett, a spokesman with the Northwest Credit Union Association. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The credit union industry claims customers are voting with their feet, opening 700,000 new accounts, many of them since protesters first camped near Wall Street. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Another beneficiary is smaller, local banks. Umpqua Bank, Oregon's largest independent bank, said new account openings in the last two months were 20 percent more than the prior year. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Umpqua CEO Ray Davis said he found he had much in common when he met with two Occupy Portland protesters earlier this week. On issues central to Occupy's plank – income inequality, unemployment, even the irresponsibility of much of the financial industry – they were on the same page. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"The real protesters are good people," Davis said. "I told 'em, 'Look, the abuses and excesses that occurred on Wall Street, some of those things were obscene and no one is in favor of that. And then awarding these guys bonuses, that was just stupid. Bankers have to take responsibility for what they did.'" </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">For a bank CEO, Davis can sound downright populist at times. He told the Occupy protesters that besides griping about problems, they need to come up with solutions. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"The issue is what's their plan? I said, 'If you really want to change the system, run for office, get elected, make change... But I have to admit there are issues there. You've practically got to be a millionaire to get elected to Congress. How we finance campaigns in this country is a disaster. The rich win." </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Davis said he told the protesters they are off base in condemning the entire financial industry. Community banks shouldn't be lumped in with the subprime lenders and financial hustlers that drove the U.S. economy off the rails, he said. </span><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><br style="vertical-align: bottom; color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;" /><span style="color: #444e5c; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">"You take subprime loans and things like credit swap defaults, 99 out of 100 community bankers wouldn't know what those are because they didn't sell them," Davis said.</span></p>

police used a mounted patrol and pepper spray to clear the street near a JP Morgan Chase branch adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

It was a long, tense day at many Oregon banks Thursday as the Occupy Portland protesters staged their "N17" day of protest against...

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These Top U.S. Banks are Vulnerable to European Crisis (NYSE:JPM, NYSE:BAC, NYSE:C, NYSE:WFC, NYSE:MS)

<p> </p><p>Europe’s debt crisis poses a serious threat to the creditworthiness of U.S. banks if it spreads beyond the five most-troubled nations, Fitch Ratings said. Hot Feature: France and Germany Split on ECB’s Role in Rescue “Unless the euro zone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad credit outlook for the U.S. banking industry could worsen,” the New York-based rating company said yesterday in a statement. Though U.S. banks have “manageable” exposure to stressed European markets, “further contagion poses a serious risk,” Fitch said. U.S. banks have significantly more exposure to Europe’s larger countries than they do to the stressed nations of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, known as the GIIPS. The six biggest U.S. banks — JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) — had $50 billion in risk tied to the GIIPS as of September 30, Fitch said. Five of the banks, excluding Wells Fargo, had $188 billion of risk tied up in France on September 30, of which $114 billion of risk was attached to French banks. Risk to Britain and its banks was $225 billion and $51 billion, respectively. Europe’s debt crisis has already toppled four elected governments — most recently those of Greece and Italy — and France could be next. The premium France pays over Germany to borrow for 10 years climbed 200 basis points today. French yields are now at 3.7%, compared to 2.2% for U.K. gilts and 2% for U.S. Treasuries. Shares of French banks, including BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, dropped today amid concern that they’ll need more capital if they are going to weather the storm. And while U.S. banks have hedged some of their risk with credit-default swaps, those may not prove effective if voluntary debt forgiveness — like the Greek debt writedowns — becomes “more prevalent,” said Fitch. The top five U.S. banks had $22 billion in hedges tied to stressed markets, according to the Fitch report. Disclosure practices make it difficult to accurately gauge U.S. banks’ risk. Banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan don’t provide a full picture of potential losses and gains, giving only net numbers and excluding some derivatives altogether.</p>

These Top U.S. Banks are Vulnerable to European Crisis (NYSE:JPM, NYSE:BAC, NYSE:C, NYSE:WFC, NYSE:MS)

  Europe’s debt crisis poses a serious threat to the creditworthiness of U.S. banks if it spreads beyond the five most-troubled nations, Fit...

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Euro-crisis appears to be nearing a climax.

<p> </p><p> Borrowing costs in Italy and France continue to rise, as does the cost of bond-default insurance.  Banks are beginning to scramble for alternate sources of funding as traditional ones dry up. And a bond auction in Spain went badly this morning. One indication of the increasing stress, both in Europe and in the U.S., is the cost of overnight loans banks make to each other. These are captured by LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) in Europe and the "TED Spread." Neither is anywhere near the levels hit during the US financial crisis. But they've been rising steadily since mid-summer.</p>

Euro-crisis appears to be nearing a climax.

   Borrowing costs in Italy and France continue to rise, as does the cost of bond-default insurance.  Banks are beginning to scramble for al...

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among the world's biggest traders of credit derivatives, have disclosed to shareholders that they have sold protection on more than $5 trillion of debt

<p> </p><p>JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among the world's biggest traders of credit derivatives, have disclosed to shareholders that they have sold protection on more than $5 trillion of debt globally. Just don't ask them how much of that was issued by Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, sometimes known as the GIIPS, or even PIIGS. As concerns mount that those countries may not be creditworthy, investors are being kept in the dark about how much risk U.S. banks face from a default. Firms including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan do not provide a full picture of potential losses and gains in such a scenario, giving only net numbers or excluding some derivatives altogether. "If you don't have to, generally people don't see the advantage to doing it," said Richard Lindsey, a former director of market regulation at the Securities and Exchange Commission who worked at Bear Stearns Cos. from 1999 through 2006. "On the other hand, if there were a run on Goldman Sachs tomorrow because the rumor was that they had exposure to Greece, you'd see them produce those numbers."</p>

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among the world's biggest traders of credit derivatives, have disclosed to shareholders that they have sold protection on more than $5 trillion of debt

  JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among the world's biggest traders of credit derivatives, have disclosed to shar...

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Signs of Market Stress Emerge in Europe, U.S.

<p> </p><p>Global markets are showing some signs of stress not seen since the 2008 financial crisis amid alarm at the expansion of Europe's debt troubles. Strains appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. The cost for European banks to swap euros for dollars climbed to levels last seen in late 2008. Pressure also was felt in the U.S., where higher funding costs were registered in markets for commercial paper, interbank lending and securities repurchases, or repos, all key sources of short-term financing for banks and corporations.</p>

Signs of Market Stress Emerge in Europe, U.S.

  Global markets are showing some signs of stress not seen since the 2008 financial crisis amid alarm at the expansion of Europe's debt ...

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U.S. Banks Face Contagion Risk From Europe Debt

<p> </p><p>U.S. banks face a “serious risk” that their creditworthiness will deteriorate if Europe's debt crisis deepens and spreads beyond the five most-troubled nations, Fitch Ratings said. “Unless the euro zone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad credit outlook for the U.S. banking industry could worsen,” the New York-based rating company said yesterday in a statement. Even as U.S. banks have “manageable” exposure to stressed European markets, “further contagion poses a serious risk,” Fitch said, without explaining what it meant by contagion. The “exposures” of U.S. lenders to major European banks and the stressed nations of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, known as the GIIPS, are smaller than those to some of the continent's larger countries, Fitch said. The six biggest U.S. banks -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley -- had $50 billion in risk tied to the GIIPS on Sept. 30, Fitch said. So-called cross-border outstandings to France for all except Wells Fargo were $188 billion, including $114 billion to French banks. Risk to Britain and its banks was $225 billion and $51 billion, respectively. Europe's debt crisis has toppled four elected governments, with the last two, in Greece and Italy, falling last week. Italian bond yields remained at about 7 percent -- the threshold that led Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek bailouts -- and shares of French banks, including BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA, dropped amid concern they'll need more capital. Stocks Slump U.S. stocks slumped yesterday after the Fitch report was released. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 1.7 percent and the 24-company KBW Bank Index fell 1.9 percent. U.S. stock declines continued today, with the S&P benchmark dropping 1.8 percent at 12:41 p.m. in New York. The Fitch report is a worst-case scenario and is “oddly out of step” with the rating firm's previous reports, analysts at HSBC Holdings Plc said today. U.S. banks may even benefit as investors shift money from Europe, HSBC said. Ratings on the U.S. banking industry are stable and take into account lenders' improved capital and liquidity position, Fitch said. The rating company's assumption is that “euro zone sovereign debt concerns will be dealt with in an orderly fashion” and that a disorderly restructuring of sovereign debt or the “forced exit” of a nation from the euro will not occur, according to the report.</p>

U.S. Banks Face Contagion Risk From Europe Debt

  U.S. banks face a “serious risk” that their creditworthiness will deteriorate if Europe's debt crisis deepens and spreads beyond the f...

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More banks to tap ECB on dollar funding woes

<p> </p><p>It's looking increasingly likely more European banks will be forced to tap the European Central Bank's US dollar facility, as stress in the cross currency basis swap market has once again become acute this week. Few banks have opted to tap the ECB's dollar facility so far, but a combination of foreign investors continuing to shun European banks and swaps markets fast becoming prohibitively expensive may soon spur a larger drawdown at the ECB's weekly unlimited dollar auction. "We are more or less at levels where banks are indifferent about going to the ECB or the FX market for dollar funding. Over the last few days spreads have widened dramatically in the FX market, making dollar funding more expensive. As a result, banks may well want to start tapping the ECB dollar facility more," said Pavan Wadhwa, global head of rates strategy at JP Morgan.</p>

More banks to tap ECB on dollar funding woes

  It's looking increasingly likely more European banks will be forced to tap the European Central Bank's US dollar facility, as stre...

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UK economy forecast: Eurozone crisis dampens Bank’s growth estimate

<p> </p><p>THE Bank of England warned today that the eurozone debt crisis is the “single biggest risk” to the UK recovery as it forecast a dramatically increased threat of a double-dip recession next year. Its quarterly inflation report revealed a greater chance of the economy contracting in the first three quarters of 2012, compared with its August forecasts, as eurozone and banking concerns and squeezed household budgets continue to weigh on growth. The Bank slashed its central - or most likely - growth estimate to no more than 1 per cent in both 2011 and 2012 from previous forecasts of around 1.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively. The worsened prospects for the UK economy mean inflation is likely to fall far quicker than previously estimated, hitting the Government’s 2 per cent target in the second half of next year before falling to as low as around 1.3 per cent in 2013. Bank governor Sir Mervyn King warned the “journey to a more balanced world economy will be long and arduous”. He said UK economic activity will be broadly flat until the middle of next year and added that the country faces a “difficult economic environment”. Today’s report backs the City’s view that the Bank will keep interest rates on hold for the foreseeable future and add another £75 billion to its quantitative easing programme by February. Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: “Even the Bank’s downgraded growth forecasts still look optimistic to us - we expect zero growth next year.”</p>

UK economy forecast: Eurozone crisis dampens Bank’s growth estimate

  THE Bank of England warned today that the eurozone debt crisis is the “single biggest risk” to the UK recovery as it forecast a dramatical...

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EasyJet pays maiden dividend after profit soars

<p> </p><p>EasyJet said on Tuesday it would pay a special dividend of 34.9 pence on top of an ordinary dividend of 10.5 pence, making a total payout of 195 million pounds. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyJet's founder and largest shareholder with 112.55 million shares, according to Reuters data, will get 51 million pounds. The company's shares were down 2.6 percent at 356.5 pence at 1110 GMT. The carrier had said in September it would return around 190 million pounds after "a robust" second half. The payout comes after Haji-Ioannou criticised plans to buy new aircraft. Sources close to Haji-Ioannou said he was still concerned about capital expenditure, which fell 1 percent to 478 million pounds, and may pile more pressure on the airline's board. The Luton, southern England-based company reported an underlying pretax profit of 248 million pounds, at the upper end of forecasts, on revenue 16 percent higher at 3.45 billion in the year to September. The rise was led by an 11.8 percent increase in passenger traffic -- with one million more people using easyJet for business travel -- and a 1.3 percent fall in underlying costs per seat. Looking ahead, industry body IATA expects airlines to suffer over the next year due to waning consumer confidence, sluggish international trade and high fuel prices. EasyJet chief executive Carolyn McCall echoed that caution. "The macroeconomic environment remains challenging for all airlines as weak consumer confidence across Europe slows the rate at which higher fuel prices and increased taxation can be passed onto passengers," she said. "Against this backdrop easyJet is taking a cautious approach to capacity deployment ... capacity in the first half of the year is planned to be flat, with growth of around 4 percent for the full year." Analysts have been calling for airlines to cut capacity to ease fierce price competition in Europe and improve paper-thin margins. EasyJet had been expected to report a full-year profit of 206-254 million pounds, with the average at 243 million, according to a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S poll. "The results are just ahead of our and consensus expectations and we would expect the cautiously confident outlook commentary to comfortably sustain 2012 consensus forecasts (213 million pounds)," said RBS analyst Andrew Lobbenberg, who holds a 'buy' rating on the stock. EasyJet's larger European peers have struggled to overcome high oil prices and sluggish demand. German group Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) and Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) have cut profit forecasts this year after results were battered by high fuel costs and slashed plans to expand capacity next year. EasyJet said around 45 percent of its winter seats had already been sold, adding first-half passenger revenue was expected to grow by mid-single digits. The airline's fuel costs rose a quarter to 917 million pounds during its 2010/11 year. At current fuel prices and exchange rates easyJet said it expected its fuel bill to rise around 220 million pounds in its 2011/12 year.</p>

EasyJet pays maiden dividend after profit soars

  EasyJet said on Tuesday it would pay a special dividend of 34.9 pence on top of an ordinary dividend of 10.5 pence, making a total payout ...

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The German Chancellor told her party conference that Europe faced its toughest hour since the Second World War

<p>The German Chancellor told her party conference that Europe faced its "toughest hour since the Second World War" - but that Germany would not support launching 'eurobonds' to solve the crisis. <br /><br /> Instead Ms Merkel said she would push for changes to European treaties to introduce sanctions for financially lax countries and the adoption of a financial transaction tax - with or without Britain. <br /><br /> David Cameron warned that the European Union would be "in peril" unless politicians agreed radical reforms. Speaking at the Lord Mayor's banquet last night, he said markets were "understandably tense" since the eurozone was not "a place to admire and emulate... but a source of alarm and crisis". <br /><br /> Traders sold equities and bonds amid doubts that politicians will act in time to prevent a recession. Eurostat said industrial production in the eurozone fell 2pc between August and September, the biggest monthly fall for two years. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) added that the slow-down is likely to continue in all developed economies. France's CAC index fell 1.3pc and Germany's Dax, 1.2pc. <br /><br /> In the bondmarkets, Italy was forced to pay 6.29pc to raise €3bn (£2.6bn) of five-year bonds - a eurozone debt auction record, despite the promise of a new government under Mario Monti. Italy, which still lacks a cabinet, needs to raise a further €46bn in debt before the end of the year.</p>

The German Chancellor told her party conference that Europe faced its toughest hour since the Second World War

The German Chancellor told her party conference that Europe faced its "toughest hour since the Second World War" - but that German...

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Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

<p> </p><p>former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described the case as an unprecedented attack on the Revenue. "The case has taken 25 man-years to investigate." Cranswick was recruited to play his role in the MTIC (missing Trader intra-community) fraud by others. Also known as carousel fraud, it involves importing goods from other EU states which are then sold through contrived business-to-business transactions. Cranswick, of Danby Road, Kiveton, Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC at a hearing last month. After the sentencing, Exchequer Secretary David Gauke said: "This Government will not tolerate dishonest people stealing public money. "This sentence shows that those who try to commit fraud need to think again - HMRC will find you and the courts will punish you. "The additional £917m we have invested in HMRC will see more cases like this successfully prosecuted, sending a clear and powerful message." The judge said the sentencing exercise was to punish the offending and deter others. "The figures in this case are astonishing, they reveal the blatant nature of the fraud," he said. Between June 2005 and February 2006, I2G supposedly carried out almost 6,000 deals, with a turnover of £2.4 billion. Sentencing Cranswick, the judge said: "You were immediately before this fraud a serving police officer. Almost unbelievably you retired from the police force and became the organiser of this fraudulent operation. "You set up the company, you clearly accepted the direction of others - the organisers who are not before this court." Outside court, HMRC said Cranswick went "from rags to riches" soon after retiring, having been heavily in debt as a police officer. A spokeswoman said: "He made lavish improvements to his home, rented a luxury apartment in the Spanish town of Marbella and paid for private schooling and tennis lessons for his children. "Cranswick claimed that in the first six weeks of trading Ideas 2 Go had turned over more than £527 million. "The company had traded over £47 million before they even got round to opening a bank account for the business." HMRC assistant director for criminal investigation Paul Rooney said: "As a police officer Cranswick knew full well that he was breaking the law, yet, motivated by greed, he chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money. "He now has to pay a very high price for his poor judgment and lack of integrity. "This was a sophisticated fraud designed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds of tax, but it started to unravel when our investigations identified sales for more than 50,000 mobile phones, which the manufacturers hadn't even begun producing in their factories." Cranswick nodded as the judge passed sentence, and gestured to members of his family in the public gallery as he was led away. Also sentenced after admitting conspiracy to cheat the Revenue were Thomas Murphy, 27, of Dinnington, who was jailed for four and a half years; Cranswick's brother-in-law, Darren Smyth, 42, from Beech Road, Maltby, and Brian Olive, 56, from Buttermere Close, Doncaster, who were sentenced to three years and four months each; and former housing officer Andrew Marsh, 28, from Sheffield, who was jailed for two years and eight months. Cranswick's 44-year-old sister, Clare Reid, married to Smyth, was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work after admitting two counts of false accounting. Cranswick styled himself as a singer-songwriter and can be seen on his website strumming a guitar to a song called Hit And Miss with the opening lines: "I'm in trouble, falling down a hole. How I got here, I won't ever know." He was lead singer with an indie band called Not The Police.</p>

Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

  former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy tha...

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How a Financial Pro Lost His House

<p> </p><p>ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was shaky, I went to take out the trash. He wrote a book based in part on lessons learned by losing his Las Vegas home in the housing crisis. There was this enormous window that looked right in on the kitchen table, and through it I could see my wife, Cori, and our four children eating dinner. It was dark outside, so they couldn’t see me, and I just stood there looking at them. After a while, I pulled up a bucket and I sat on it, just watching my children eat. I found myself wishing that I could get back there, connected to the simple ordinary stuff of my family’s life. And as I sat and watched, filled with longing and guilt, two questions kept arising: How did I get here? And how am I going to get out of this? There are many stories these days of people who lost their financial bearings during the housing boom and the crisis that followed, but my story is a bit different from most. I’m a financial adviser. I get paid to help people make smart financial choices, and I speak and write about personal finance issues for this publication and others. My first book comes out in January, “The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things With Money” (Portfolio, a Penguin imprint). The thing that few people know, though, is that I learned a lot of this from experience. I made a bunch of mistakes, the very same ones that I now go around warning people to avoid. So this is the story of how I lost my home, the profound ethical questions that arose along the way, and what my wife and I learned from the mistakes that led us to that point. It made me better at what I do, but it wasn’t much fun getting there. Like most financial stories, this one is personal. It starts with me getting into the financial services industry more or less by accident. I answered an ad in 1995 that I thought was for a job related to “security” (as in security guard) but was in fact related to “securities.” That’s how little I knew about the stock market. A few months later I found myself working a phone at a Fidelity Investments call center. Things went well, and by 1999 I was a Merrill Lynch financial adviser and a certified financial planner. By then, we also owned a house in Salt Lake City. We’d bought it two years earlier, with a $25,000 down payment. A few years later, an opportunity arose to form a partnership with a successful Merrill adviser in Las Vegas. The place was on our top 10 list of never-move-to cities because we had always associated it with the Strip. But Cori and I were looking for an opportunity to have an experience somewhere else, and we met some great people when we visited the city. I took the job, and we moved down there. That was May 2003. Housing prices were already crazy, so we rented. But our neighborhood had zero character and lots of cookie-cutter houses. Within a few weeks, we were looking for a place to buy. I felt we could afford around $350,000. We called a real estate agent named Mitch, who had signs on all the bus stops: Talk to Mitch! He picked us up in a gold Jaguar, and suddenly we were looking at houses that listed at $500,000 or more. It felt a little crazy to be shopping for houses that cost half a million dollars, but my income was growing rapidly. Everywhere I looked, people were being rewarded for buying as much house as they could possibly afford, and then some. There was this excitement in the air, almost like static. I started to think that if I didn’t buy a house right then, I would never be able to afford one. At moments during our house hunt, I felt in my gut that something wasn’t right. We’d go to open houses for $400,000 homes and see lines of couples in their late 20s — younger than we were — waiting to get inside. I kept wondering where all the money was coming from. How did all these people make so much?</p>

How a Financial Pro Lost His House

  ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was sh...

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BOTTOM five most hated airports

<h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="Ninoy Aquino International Airport" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/5--STR-AFP-Getty-Images.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Wear a helmet -- the first collapsed ceiling in 2006 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.</div></div><p><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; background-color: #ffffff;">Beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility, NAIA brings the term “Stuck in the 1970s” to a new level.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">At Terminal 1 all non-Philippine Airlines remain crammed despite serious overcapacity issues and a new and underused Terminal 3 is occupied by a few minor carriers. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">A rash of bad press this year (including a “Worst in the World” ribbon from Sleeping in Airports) was capped by a collapsed ceiling in T1, a paralyzing ground service strike at T2, and the usual charges of tampered luggage, filthy restrooms, seat shortages at gates, re-sealed water bottles sold in retail shops and an Amazing Race-style check-in routine spiked with bureaucracy, broken escalators, lengthy Dot Matrix passenger lists and creative airport departure fees. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><strong>Read more on CNNGo: <a href="http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/visit/bangkok-edges-top-10-list-worlds-busiest-airports-774335" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">World's busiest airports announced</a></strong></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">4. Toncontín International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="worst airports" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/4-ORLANDO-SIERRA-AFP-Getty-.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Over-priced corn chips will be the least of your worries.</div></div><p><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">When do the most common airport gripes about inefficiency, uncomfortable gate chairs, dirty floors and lousy dining options suddenly become irrelevant? When you’re preoccupied about whether your 757 will actually be able to stop before the runway does. </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Nestled in a bowl-shaped valley at 957 meters above sea level, Toncontín’s notoriously stubby, mountain-cloaked landing strip was recently lengthened another 300 meters following a fatal TACA aircraft overshoot in 2008.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Not enough though to avoid being named the “second most dangerous airport in the world” by the History Channel. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Nepal’s hair-raising Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Himalayas is the top seed, but receives fewer gripes from its thrill-seeking Everest-bound clientele.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><strong>Read more on CNNGo: <a href="http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/Shanghai%20Pudong%20International%20Airport:%20Fifth%20best%20in%20the%20world" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">Shanghai Pudong International Airport: Fifth best in the world</a></strong></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">3. London Heathrow, London, England</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="bad airports" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/3--BEN-STANSALL-AFP-Getty-I.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">"You'll fly through departures -- at the speed of a penguin."</div></div><p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Depending on which of Heathrow’s five terminals one is funneled through, the average experience at the world’s third-busiest airport ranges from mildly tedious to "Fawlty Towers" ridiculous. </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">With its rash of -- as they were politely called -- “teething problems” in bright and airy T5 (remember that riotous grand opening with 34 canceled flights?) and nicely matured problems in Ts 1, 2 and 3, the issues passengers are beset with run the gamut.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Parking messes. Busted baggage carousels. Deadlocked security lines. Long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of “last call” announcements. Realizations that getting out of Heathrow took longer than actually flying here from Madrid. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">In the airport “where the world changes planes,” it all boils down to a chronic inability to cope with this many people. Plans for a sixth terminal should help sever even more nerves.</p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/2-Carlo-Allegri-Getty-Image.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">It's not even a good spot for celebrity sightings.</div></div><p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">If the world’s seventh-busiest flight hub was an old ballpark resting on the stale reputation of its Dodger Dogs and that great 1959 series, LAX might have some endearment value. </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">But it’s an airport -- a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility and several publicized concerns about how its 1,700 takeoffs and landings a day can be sustained in a facility a fifth the size of healthier cousins like Dallas/Fort Worth. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The unsupportive donut-shaped design -- it’s been called “eight terminals connected by a traffic jam” -- makes dashing between airlines feel like a diesel-scented cardio test. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Plunked in the middle is the airport’s landmark Jetsons-style restaurant and only mentionable amenity, Encounter, but how does one actually get inside this place -- at least before being nailed for a petty traffic violation by some of the most ticket-hungry airport cops west of the Mississippi?</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><strong>Read more on CNNGo: <a href="http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/worlds-most-thrilling-airports-338032" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">World's most terrifying airports</a></strong></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/1---BERTRAND-LANGLOIS-AFP-G.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Don't expect to make friends during a storm closure.</div></div><p><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">“A great country worthy of the name,” President Charles de Gaulle once opined, “does not have any friends.” </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">True or not, it’s this sort of attitude that has helped CDG become the most maligned major airport on earth. What’s fueling it? </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafés.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one <a href="http://www.thebenche.com/forum/lounge/6603-best-worst-airports-world.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">commuter</a>, “is like being in custody.”  </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.</p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><br /><br /><br /></span></p>

BOTTOM five most hated airports

5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines   Wear a helmet -- the first collapsed ceiling in 2006 at Ninoy Aquino International Airp...

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Top five most hated Airports

<p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/10-MAURICIO-LIMA-AFP-Getty-.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Whether it's 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. this airport experiences round-the-clock rush hour.</div></div><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; background-color: #ffffff;">Why is this place on our list after scoring third best airport in South America at the 2011</span><a href="http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/ww.worldairportawards.com/Awards_2011/bestairport_samerica.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" target="_blank"> World Airport Awards</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">? </span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Because, shockingly enough, it turns out that corporate medal ceremonies aren’t always in sync with what people are thinking when they're standing in two-hour immigration lines, suffering routinely unannounced gate changes and paying through the teeth for a stale Brazilian cheese roll and beer inside an understaffed and over-aged aviation facility. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">In a country where flight delays (departing or arriving) are just part of the deal, some recent numbers would give pause to the most unflappable traveler at Brazil’s largest airport.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Just 41 percent of all flights leave on time. Only 59 percent of flights arrive on schedule, according to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/14/airports-brazil-delays-biz-logistics-cx_bw_0114airports.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">Forbes</a>.  </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">São Paulo-Guarulhos has announced plans to add runways and terminals -- what airport hasn’t? -- but with nearly 30 million passengers traipsing through every year (the figure has reportedly doubled in under a decade) the urgency is palpable and, sadly enough, unsolved by upping prices at musty duty-free shops.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">But does this really constitute bronze medal status? When the best unofficial advice for surviving Brazil’s pin-up airport is to try and learn a little Portuguese and not lose your temper, something’s gotta give. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><strong>Read more on CNNGo: </strong><a href="http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/life/world%E2%80%99s-biggest-airport-planned-328259" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank"><strong>World's biggest airport planned</strong></a></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">9. Perth Airport, Perth, Australia</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="worst airports" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/9-WILLIAM-WEST-AFP-Getty-Im.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Kick a dog while it's down: The Qantas strike didn't help PER's reputation.</div></div><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">If there’s one thing Australians love, it’s hating their airports.</span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">But while the big guns in Sydney, Melbourne and also-rans in Darwin, Cairns and Hobart get routinely lambasted for various inefficiencies and rip-off tactics, passengers in Western Australia have a special place in their spleens for Perth. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">“The only advantage over some other airports is the lack of nearby combat,” notes one of several miffed passengers on <a href="http://www.airlinequality.com/Airports/Airport_forum/per.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">airportquality.com</a>. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">With a reviled pair of domestic terminals (home of two-hour taxi-line queues, atrocious check-in lines, overpopulated gates and meager lounges) and a slightly more palatable international terminal five kilometers away, Perth’s brittle facilities can be overwhelmed just by a trio of aircraft arriving within 20 minutes of each other. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Now that an ambitious “billion-dollar” redevelopment project has been significantly scaled back, who would ever want to leave Changi for this place? </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><strong>Read more on CNNGo: Transit hotels:<a href="http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/transit-hotels-around-world-712461" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank"> How to get to sleep during your stopover</a></strong></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">8. Tribhuvan International, Kathmandu, Nepal</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/8--PRAKASH-MATHEMA-AFP-Gett.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Don't look the officers -- or the dogs -- in the eye.</div></div><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">For a small airport in a pretty country, Tribhuvan has it all: the interminable weather delays of Boston Logan, the shoddy restroom maintenance of a Glasgow sports bar, the departure board sparsity of McMurdo Airfield and the chronic chaos of a kids' soccer match. </span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Some airport improvements have been underway for the Visit Nepal 2011 tourism campaign, including things most passengers don’t much care about (e.g., the new helicopter base). </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">The most serious beefs with Nepal’s only international airport revolve around its primitive yet officious check-in procedure, starring a roulette wheel of underpaid security agents. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">“Departure is an endless game of body searches and silly questions,” notes one <a href="http://www.airlinequality.com/Airports/Airport_forum/ktm.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">passenger.</a></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">“Those who didn’t have their e-tickets printed out had to argue their way in,” says another, who was checked seven times and scolded for not having a baggage tag on a carry-on before eventually boarding. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Never mind. The city’s markets and surrounding mountains are lovely.</p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">7. John F. Kennedy International, New York, United States</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/7-Michael-Nagle-Getty-Image.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Fans flooded the airport to welcome the 1964 British Invasion, but it seems they never left.</div></div><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">You’d think it would be one of the greatest humiliations any major airport would never allow itself to live down -- getting routinely abandoned by fed-up folks opting to fly out of Newark (Newark!) instead, where at least the ground staff cop less attitude and fewer people outside are pretending to be cab drivers.  </span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">But, nah, JFK really couldn’t really care less.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Every year, more than 21 million passengers stumble through worn, mid-century terminals that peaked when The Beatles arrived in the United States and rooftop parking was all the rage; JFK proudly remains the world’s busiest international air gateway.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">So if you’re not into a dim, surly, unbearably congested airport reeking with attitude and unapologetically long immigration lines -- good riddance. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">“JFK had a piece of my luggage sitting in a little detention room for bags -- for over a year,” notes <a href="http://www.airlinequality.com/Airports/Airport_forum/jfk.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">one passenger</a>. “No one noticed it was there, until finally an observant Air France employee wondered what the dusty little green bag in the corner was.” </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><strong>Read more on CNNGo: <a href="http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/singapores-changi-airport-worlds-favorite-airport-according-secret-report-937772" style="text-decoration: none; color: #000000; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial;" target="_blank">Secret Report: Singapore's Chiangi Airport world's favorite </a></strong></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0.667em; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">6. Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, Kenya</h2><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><div class="inline-image inline_image_400x267" style="float: left; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><img alt="" src="http://i.cdn.cnngo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/inline_image_400x267/2011/10/31/6-SIMON-MAINA-AFP-Getty-Ima.jpg" style="border: 0px initial initial;" /><div class="inline-image-caption in-captioninline_image_400x267" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #cccccc; color: #494949; padding-top: 2px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 9px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; width: 400px;">Can't be disappointed if you're not expecting much.</div></div><br class="clear-both" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">“As African airports go, it’s not that bad -- but as an international hub, it may be one of the worst out there.” </span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"> </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">This is the common refrain among travelers through JKIA, who either don’t have the heart or the expectations to give this dated aviation facility the kind of pounding reserved for the JFKs and Charles de Gaulles of the world. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Saddled with a 1958 blueprint designed for 2.5 million passengers, JKIA receives close to twice that many. Hence the airport’s 2005, Three Phase, US$100 million expansion project which has seen long delays (something about the rain) and has been spinning its tires somewhere in Phase Two for the last few years. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">For now, that means business as usual: cramped spaces; long lines; inadequate seating; frequent power outages; tiny washrooms hiding up several flights of stairs; shabby duty free shops; overpriced food outlets; and business class lounges worthy of a shelter in mid-city Los Angeles.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;">Sure, it’s a breeze compared to Lagos. But it could be so much better. The confusing result: grateful disappointment?</p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; background-color: #ffffff;"><br /><br /><br /></span></p>

Top five most hated Airports

10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil   Whether it's 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. this airport experiences round-the-clock rush h...

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Fall of richest man in Ireland as Quinn is declared bankrupt

<p> </p><p>TROUBLED tycoon Sean Quinn, once Ireland’s richest man, was declared bankrupt yesterday at the High Court in Belfast. The 64-year-old businessman was granted a voluntary adjudication over an alleged E2.8bn debt owed to Anglo Irish Bank. It is believed to be one of the biggest bankruptcy orders of its kind ever made in either the United Kingdom or Ireland. Mr Quinn said he brought the application north of the border because he was born, reared and worked all his life in Co Fermanagh. But by declaring himself bankrupt in Northern Ireland it also means he only has to wait a year before going back into business – rather than 12 years in the Republic. He claimed to have been left with no alternative but to take the “drastic decision” over problems which stemmed from “ill-fated investments in Anglo”. The former billionaire was stripped of control of his manufacturing and insurance business empire in April. He had been plunged into financial trouble by purchasing bank shares which then became worthless. As a consequence, receivers were installed and he and his family lost any role in the management of the Quinn Group. Mr Quinn accepts that he owes around E194m to Anglo for property loans which he cannot repay. But the rest of the alleged debt, which relates to Contracts for Difference (CFDs) used to buy bank shares, is disputed. The Quinn family are currently suing Anglo, claiming the CFDs were tainted with illegality. Mr Quinn applied for voluntary bankruptcy through his lawyer and licensed insolvency practitioner, John Gordon of Napier and Sons. The order was granted during a brief hearing before a Master at the High Court in Belfast. Mr Quinn said in a statement: “I have done absolutely everything in my power to avoid taking this drastic decision. The vast majority of debt that Anglo maintains is owed is strenuously disputed. I cannot, however, now pay those loans which are due.” He added: “Following Anglo taking control of the Quinn Group of companies, which I and a loyal team spent a lifetime building, I find myself left with no alternative.” The businessman said he had “worked tirelessly” to find a solution to the problems. He claimed: “Anglo, and more recently the Irish Government, are intent on making scapegoats of my family and I.” According to him, the bank has attempted to avoid acknowledging “a lack of corporate responsibility, self-interest and lack of regulation that prevailed at the time”. His allegations are now the subject of High Court proceedings. Mr Quinn accepted: “I am certainly not without blame. I am not in the business of pointing fingers or making excuses. “However, recent history has shown that I, like thousands of others in Ireland, incorrectly relied upon the persons who guided Anglo and who wrongfully sought to portray a ‘blue chip’ Irish banking stock.” He said that he and his team had developed one of the most successful businesses in Irish history, with the group generating more than 5,000 jobs and contributing in excess of E1bn in tax revenues. Mr Quinn rejected any suggestion that he had brought down the empire. He also claimed: “Anglo has supported and promoted an ill-conceived and highly damaging receivership programme which I believe, if it continues on its current road, is destined for certain and catastrophic failure.” The statement added: “My family and I have been subjected to relentless negative media coverage over the past three years. “I have been portrayed as a reckless gambler who bet on a bank. I have never sought publicity, nor have I courted the media. “Sadly this now seems to have worked very much to my disadvantage, especially when compared with the sophisticated and massively expensive publicity campaign operated for, and on behalf of Anglo.</p>

Fall of richest man in Ireland as Quinn is declared bankrupt

  TROUBLED tycoon Sean Quinn, once Ireland’s richest man, was declared bankrupt yesterday at the High Court in Belfast. The 64-year-old bus...

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Murdochs are not a mafia – but the family firm is in meltdown

<p> </p><p>There are times to push fine detail and finely timed memory losses aside and ask: what makes sense? And thus the fall and fall of the House of Murdoch continues. Young James is so smart, so smooth, such a master of dead bats and – yes! – detail. He's a clever lad. Why, then, did he act so stupidly? And why did those who were supposed to protect him, in loco parentis, do such a lousy job? We're not talking corporate governance here: we're talking family. Tom Watson may have pushed his mafia metaphor a tad too far at the committee grilling last week, but the family and its faithful, well-remunerated retainers are what matter most. See everything that Rupert has done over the last 20 years as family first and it all begins to fall into place. Take Les Hinton, the head butler at Wapping Abbey at the time. Did he brief Rupert Murdoch as Clive Goodman went to prison? How could he not have? Murdoch senior is always on the phone. He'd be chatting to editor Andy Coulson just as he'd chatted to News of the World editors down the years. Would Rupert have left his de facto heir to sink or swim in this rancid pool without full briefings and full protection? Of course not. Take Rebekah Brooks, the tabloid queen waiting to climb the management ladder when young James arrived. She'd been editor of the News of the World; she was editor of the Sun, just a few corridor yards away; Andy Coulson was her former deputy, her pick for the top, her boy. Didn't she see the perils post-hacking? Surely she wouldn't let James fall into the mire. Or take Colin Myler, the last editor of the News of the World, the Mr Clean chosen to clear up the whole damned mess. Hugely experienced, a previous editor of the Sunday and daily Mirror; an honourable guy who took the fall when a high-profile trial was stopped because people on his staff made mistakes. How did Myler come to Wapping, then? Because, after almost seven years' exile on Murdoch's New York Post, he was the safe pair of hands Rupert chose personally to put things back on track. And today? Les Hinton is history, dumped from Dow Jones as the family scrabbles after a safe haven. Rebekah is history, too, left with an office, a chauffeur and £1.7m to keep her warm. While Myler is suddenly the enemy, the loyalist inexplicably contradicting James about what James was told and siding with Tom Crone, the paper's equally suddenly reviled lawyer. Does any of this make the remotest human sense? If some revered TV scriptwriter (say Peter Morgan) wrote a series about newspaper life in which nobody gossiped, nobody got drunk, nobody told anyone anything, he'd be laughed out of the studio. The entire farrago doesn't hold for a second. With Scotland Yard knee-deep in unread emails, there's nil chance of that unsteady state ending any decade soon. Proof – in any bewigged form – will probably only emerge much later: but proof, in a thumbs-up or -down way, is commodiously available already. An over-protected fool or a desperate man cornered? It's a sad, sad choice, but amounts to much the same thing either way. Protectors didn't protect. Instead, they were jettisoned one by one. And perhaps the saddest – nay, tragic – explanation of what went on is also the most benign. James wasn't interested in tabloid blunders, or even playing executive chairman to them. He loved digital, TV, the future. He was bored, bored, bored by lawyers and their letters. His father, the dad who must be obeyed, had made him serve his time; but his mind kept wandering away to the fields he loved. There's the tragedy for the son and the family, but worst of all for Rupert. Those who didn't quite believe it in the summer must surely acknowledge it now: James Murdoch can never sit at his father's desk. The whole succession scenario is bust. The Murdoch hegemony stops here. No sentient shareholder is going to let the family run things hands-on any longer. Just sit back and cash the dividends. There may be more rumours about a Sun on Sunday come the dawn of 2012, but forget them. We can't even be sure there'll be a Sun if James's readiness to shut it (should more hacking be discovered) is tested. There won't be any clear, calm, imminent moment when, all passion spent, the Bun seems wholesome again. Trinity Mirror, its profits bulwarked by the greatest ever stroke of luck, can carry on smiling. The murk of 2011 will just linger on (oozing into view every time Tom Watson mentions a new private eye). Those who like strong medicine and stronger penalties against malfeasance may care to count the payback thus far. For Murdoch: no heir, no News of the World, some $90m (£56m) gone, a reputation and an influence lost, a family at war. For James: no glowing future. For many of the rest of the gang: no jobs and possibly no freedom either. Retribution doesn't come crueller than this. Hacking can damage your health, wealth, your nearest and dearest. Hacking has sundered the biggest media empire in the globe: and many things, including Wapping and, less joyously, the papers that remain, can never be quite the same again. ■ The News of the World may be dead and buried, but a dogged Max Mosley is still trying to drive a stake through its heart. About 3,000 copies of the Nazi orgy story that incensed him circulated in France so, three years after the event, he went to Paris, launched another privacy case and (last week) won. Triumph? Only up to a point. The court awarded €32,000 in all (€10,000 as a state fine, €7,000 (£27,000) as Max's damages and the rest as costs). That doesn't sound much, sniffed Britain's finest media eagles, barely worth putting on a wig and gown for in the Strand. His French lawyer thought Max had done pretty well – but the tariff, by Strand standards, is low, low, low. Whether it's under French law or the European Convention on Human Rights, you can make a point over the Channel, if you must: but you won't make a mint.</p>

Murdochs are not a mafia – but the family firm is in meltdown

  There are times to push fine detail and finely timed memory losses aside and ask: what makes sense? And thus the fall and fall of the Hous...

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