News stories by Adrianne Appel, page 2

Banks bailed out with U.S. taxpayer money, like Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp, are raking in money by charging 150 percent interest and more on short-term, payday loans to people with no savings, consumer advocates say.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury have doled out trillions in taxpayer dollars to banks and corporations and now the boom may be falling on what lawmakers say is a shroud of secrecy that surrounds their actions.

U.S. taxpayers have given 50 billion to rescue General Motors, but the company says it should not have to pay a penny to people harmed by known defects in its vehicles.

Just months after getting a massive handout from Uncle Sam to prevent the collapse of Wall Street, big banks say they are back on solid ground and ready to repay the money.

The U.S. government will invest billions in Chrysler and the United Auto Workers (UAW) trade union will become majority owners of the company, in a financial rescue deal announced Thursday by the White House.

Thousands of angry U.S. workers took to the streets Thursday to protest some major banks and insurance companies that have handed out extravagant bonuses on the taxpayers' dime, as the U.S. House of Representatives voted to get some of the bonus money back.

Many of the biggest mortgage lenders in the U.S. have engaged in widespread, systematic schemes that ripped off hundreds of thousands of families seeking to buy a home, refinance or foreclose, according to lawsuits filed on behalf of consumers.

The global economy is barely showing a pulse, and the world's poor are especially at risk, the International Monetary Fund declared Wednesday.

U.S. workers are losing jobs in record numbers, scores of businesses are shuttering and hundreds of thousands of families are newly homeless -- and Congress just gave itself a generous pay raise.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars thrown at banks large and small, the U.S. economy is in a free fall, just weeks before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, analysts say.