90 at 9: California IOU worries; CBA freezes mortgage fund, again (Update 1)

Alex Tarrant presents 90 seconds at 9 o'clock in association with BNZ. Watch on our video page here. Watch on YouTube here. The bank fee being looked at by the Obama administration could be placed on over 20 of the country's largest banks and financial institutions to claw back up to US$120 billion in lost TARP funds over 10 years, Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile, California is after for US$6.9 billion in Federal funds to help the state (and the world's eighth largest economy) with its widening deficit. Many are expecting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will have to revert to last year's IOU system to pay its bills, Bloomberg reports. Schwarzenegger has been supportive of Barack Obama since the President was elected and voted for the US$787 billion stimulus package. However, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod said: "We recognize they have enormous problems...But we can't solve all of those problems from Washington." German economic growth stalled in the fourth quarter of 2009 after a slight rise in the third quarter, the New York Times reports. German output fell 5% over 2009, on a 14.7% drop in exports. Economists are expecting increased demand for German goods from China and the United States will help fuel growth in 2010. In Australia, a Commonwealth Bank mortgage fund run by Colonial First State has been frozen again a little over a month after it was reopened, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The fund was initially frozen shortly after the introduction of Australia's deposit guarantee scheme, which saw a flight to the safety of bank deposits. A rise in bad debts was the cause for the freeze this time around. In New Zealand, the NZ$ began the morning around 74 USc. Today we look forward to REINZ house price and sales figures for December, (Update 1: REINZ figures getting released on the 18th this month so the lovely people at the institute can have a nice long holiday) and also building consent figures for November.