Another Financial Crisis Round-Up

Cause there's too much news to do it one story at a time.

First--the pot of gold is empty:

Ireland will seek emergency international aid totaling as much as 60 percent of the size of its economy, dwarfing the Greek bailout, to save its banks and bolster its finances.

Ireland will ask for about 95 billion euros ($130 billion) from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates. UniCredit SA put the package at as much as 85 billion euros, while Deutsche Bank AG sees a 90 billion-euro plan. The 110 billion-euro aid for Greece in May was the equivalent of 47 percent of its gross domestic product.

The cost of bailing out Ireland will be inflated by the price of shoring up its banking system, which Goldman puts at almost a third of the total request. The bursting of the real- estate bubble in 2008 pushed its banks close to collapse and plunged the country into recession...

Second--the Spaniards appear to be next:

the next in line for European Union and International Monetary Fund money may be Portugal, and then Spain, analysts said.

"We're getting near the end-game in terms of Ireland, and that was a good bailout, and we did all the right things; but hot on the heels of Ireland we have Portugal and then Spain, and Spain will be the biggie," Meyer said.

She predicted that a Spanish bailout would likely cost up to 500 billion euros; but there is no "real mechanism" to deal with it, Meyer added.

"We saw it with Greece and the unhelpful way of solving the Greek problem and we saw it again with Ireland and some very unhelpful comments out of Germany," she said. "We really need to get to a modus operandi."...

And here at home--caught with the hand in the cookie jar:

Federal investigators have turned up the heat on Wall Street, raiding three hedge funds in what one of the targets called a wide-ranging probe of insider trading.

The FBI on Monday searched the New York offices of Level Global Investors LP, and the Stamford, Conn., headquarters of Diamondback Capital Management LLC, a law enforcement official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing case.

Another FBI official said the agency also searched a third site, at 30 Federal St. in Boston. Hedge fund Loch Capital Management LLC has its headquarters at that address.

The FBI said in a statement that it had executed search warrants in the three states "in an ongoing investigation." Agency spokesmen said they could not comment further because the court documents are under seal...