You would think the worlds of high-stakes financial markets and selling salsa wouldn’t have a lot in common. But in one man’s life, the two are interchangeable. Ernie Dettbarn is a senior vice president of fixed income at BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond. He also is the president of Ernie’s Epic Foods, a company that makes salsas.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.: $25 billion
  Morgan Stanley: $10 billion
  Goldman Sachs Group Inc.: $10 billion
  U.S. Bancorp: $6.6 billion
  Capital One Financial Corp.: $3.57 billion
  American Express Co.: $3.39 billion
  BB&T Corp.: $3.1 billion
  Bank of New York Mellon Corp.: $3.04 billion

A key government effort to ease the credit crisis reached a milestone yesterday as 10 large banks, including Virginia-based Capital One Financial Corp., said they had repaid a total of $68 billion in bailout funds. The Treasury Department said last week that the banks could begin repaying money they received under the $700 billion financial system bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. The government created the program in October as its flagship effort to address the global credit crisis and teetering financial markets.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday cut ratings on 18 banks amid concern about further weakening in the financial sector. S&P said the changes reflected its assessment that volatility will remain in the financial sector and that the industry is expected to face tighter regulatory oversight. S&P also said loan losses, which have plagued the industry for more than a year, are likely to continue to increase and could grow beyond expectations.

Richmond-based Media General Inc. yesterday reported a wider first-quarter loss as advertising sales continued to falter in the economic downturn. Media General, which owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch, reported a loss of $21.3 million, or 96 cents per share, compared with a loss of $20.3 million, or 92 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2008. The recent results included severance expenses of $4.5 million, or 20 cents per share.

Stabilizing the real estate market is key to ending this financial crisis, a banking executive told the World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond. John A. Allison IV, chairman of BB&T Corp., spoke to about 200 people at the Omni Richmond Hotel last night. Allison, 60, spoke about the financial crisis, its causes and possible cures.

What caused the global financial crisis, frozen credit lines and what’s the best way to fix them? John Allison, chairman of BB&T Corp., is expected to address these issues when he speaks Monday evening at a meeting of the World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond, a nonprofit institution focused on the U.S. role in the wider world. “We begin the year with a subject foremost on most peoples’ minds—what is happening with the economy?“ said Council President Randolph Bell, former U.S. ambassador at large.