90 at 9: More Obama bank fee talk; Aussie job ads up 6% in December; OECD unemployment 8.8%

Watch on our video page here. Watch on YouTube here. Alex Tarrant presents 90 seconds at 9 o'clock in association with BNZ. Talk from Washington overnight indicated the Obama administration is considering a fee on banks to scrape back some of the costs taxpayers got hit with in the US bank bailout package, Politico reported. It's still all talk at the moment, and full plans (if it goes ahead) are likely to be released in Obama's budget next month. The US dollar weakened overnight as investors took the stance that the Fed was likely to leave interest rates low for longer in an effort to spur growth in 2010, Bloomberg reports. The global growth outlook is currently being supported by signs that China will lead the way in 2010. The New Zealand dollar climbed above 74 USc overnight as the US dollar weakened. It has now climbed 2 USc since the start of the year. The Australian dollar also rose yesterday. A report from ANZ said that job advertisements in newspapers and on-line rose 6% (seasonally adjusted) in December from November. For more on the ANZ report see our sister site, www.interestratenews.com.au. Finally, an OECD report released overnight shows OECD unemployment at 8.8% in November, which was the same as in October. New Zealand's latest figures show NZ unemployment at 6.5% in September. The country with the highest (official) unemployment rate in the OECD was Spain, with 19.4%.