ECONOMY

TRADE DEFICIT HIT ALL-TIME MONTHLY HIGH IN FEBRUARY

The U.S. trade deficit hit a record monthly high of $61.04 billion in February as imports of oil and textiles surged while American exports barely budged. The deficit figure sent tremors through Wall Street, with investors worrying that the huge amount of foreign money America needs to finance the deficit could at some point trigger a freefall in the dollar and aggravate inflation problems. The February deficit was up 4.3% from a January trade gap of $58.5 billion. The big jump in textile and clothing imports was expected to spur pressure on the administration to erect barriers to protect domestic manufacturers from a surge in imports from China since global textile quotas expired at the beginning of this year.

– Associated Press

GEITHNER: FISCAL DEFICIT IS ‘IN THE ZONE OF UNSUSTAINABILITY’

America’s fiscal deficit, now between 3% and 4% of GDP, is “in the zone of unsustainability” and the current account deficit is “without precedent in the U.S. economic experience,” the chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner, said in an address to the Puerto Rico Bankers Association yesterday. Also, the imbalances magnify the risks in one another, he said, adding that they could reduce the willingness of the world’s savers to put their capital to work in America. However, he said, “these are risks, not certainties.” The fiscal deficit is manageable in the short term, “provided we deliver modest changes to the paths of expenditures and revenues.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

REGULATORY

FORMER AIG CHIEF DECLINES TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former chief executive officer of embattled insurer American International Group, invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination yesterday and declined to answer questions from government investigators. The morning deposition of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg lasted about 45 minutes, according to a person who attended the meeting but asked not to be identified by name. The person said Mr. Greenberg invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to all questions. There was no public statement from Mr. Greenberg, who arrived and exited the building via an underground tunnel, avoiding reporters who had staked out the street-level entrances to the building.

– Associated Press

NATIONAL

POTENTIAL THEFT OF ONLINE PROFILES 10 TIMES WORSE THAN THOUGHT

Up to 10 times as many people as originally thought may have had their profiles stolen from a LexisNexis database in America, publisher and data broker Reed Elsevier Group PLC said yeterday. The company reported last month that criminals may have accessed personal details of 32,000 people via a breach of LexisNexis’ recently acquired Seisint unit. It now says that figure is closer to 310,000 people. Reed said it had identified 59 incidents since January 2003 in which unauthorized persons, predominantly using IDs and passwords of legitimate Seisint customers, may have fraudulently acquired personal identifying information on those thousands of people. Information accessed included names, addresses, Social Security and driver license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information, the company said.

– Associated Press