Business digest

NATION

Harsh words for Geithner

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans alike pummeled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday over his role in the $180 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG Inc., venting public anger over Wall Street’s return to prosperity while unemployment stands at 10 percent.

Geithner, one of the original architects of the government’s 2008 response to the financial crisis as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, defended the use of taxpayer money as necessary to head off “potentially catastrophic damage to the economy.”

But members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hammered away at why regulators allowed American International Group to pass on billions of the bailout money to big Wall Street banks that were business partners.

A dismal December for new-home sales

WASHINGTON — New-home sales posted an unexpected drop in December, capping the industry’s worst year on record and fueling concern that the housing market turnaround could falter.

Last month’s results were the weakest since March and were only 4 percent above the bottom last January. The data showed the housing recovery remains limp despite newly expanded tax incentives to spur sales. Many in the industry, however, expect sales to pick up as the April 30 deadline for the tax credit nears.

Nationwide, new home sales for December fell 7.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000 from an upwardly revised November pace of 370,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast a pace of 370,000 for December.

Associated Press