Obama to set conditions for banks President Obama has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to compile a set

of guidelines for banks receiving taxpayers' money. "If a bank or a financial institution is getting relief then they've got to abide by certain conditions," he said in an interview with NBC News. The president has been critical of bank executives receiving bonuses despite taking government bail-outs. He also said that "some banks won't make it" through the current crisis. "The banks, because of mismanagement, because of huge risk-taking, are now in a very vulnerable position," he said. "We can expect that we're going to have to do more to shore up the financial system." Stimulus package The interview was short on details with the president declining to comment on whether he planned to create a "bad bank" to buy toxic assets from other financial institutions. He said that he did not want to pre-empt an announcement planned for "next week". The president and Vice President Joe Biden are due to meet congressional leaders later on Monday to encourage them to move forward on an $800bn (567bn) economic stimulus package. El presidente y el vicepresidente Joe Biden se reunirn con los lderes del Congreso ms tarde el lunes para alentarlos a adelantar un paquete de estmulo econmico de 800 mil millones de dlares (585 mil millones de euros). He said he was confident that Republicans would be able to support the final version of the legislation, although it passed in the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. l dijo que confa que los republicanos seran capaces de apoyar la versin final de la legislacin aunque haya pasado la Cmara de Representantes sin un voto republicano. The plan will be scrutinised by the Senate this week. El plan ser examinado por le Senado esta semana. It is unlikely that it will be able to pass the Senate without Republican support because the Democrats do not have the majority that they would need to vote down any potential delaying tactics.

Es poco probable que sea capaz de pasar el Senado sin el apoyo republicano porque los demcratas no tienen la mayora necesaria para votar en contra cualquier cualquier maniobra potencial capaz de retrasarlo. Economic woes Problemas econmicos President Obama's comments came as fresh official data indicated the problems facing the wider US economy show no signs of lessening. Los comentarios del presidente Obama llegaron como datos oficiales nuevos que muestran que los problemas a los que enfrenta la economa estadounidense no disminuyem. US consumer spending fell for a sixth consecutive month in December, according to the Commerce Department. El gasto de los consumidores estadounidenses cay por sexto mes consecutivo en diciembre segn el Departamento de Comercio de Estados Unidos. Although the decline was expected, the 1% drop was worse than the 0.9% contraction predicted by analysts. Aunque se esperaba ese descenso, la cada del 1% fue peor que el 0'9% pronosticado por los analistas. Meanwhile, construction spending fell for a third month in a row in December, dropping 1.4%. Mientras tanto el gasto en la construccin cay por tercer mes consecutivo en diciembre Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7865165.stm Published: 2009/02/02 15:34:06 GMT BBC MMIX