China's interest-rate increase has less to do with the controversy over the value of its currency than with a straightforward effort to fight inflation— but it risks intensifying the currency battle nonetheless.

Many observers say China's move Tuesday to raise key rates is a textbook response to the country's strong growth, rising inflation and the risk of a dangerous property bubble. More increases are likely, they say, as China tries to slow the frenzied borrowing that helped it through the recent recession.

But the rate move—which comes just days before finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations meet in South Korea—has implications for China's currency, too. In most economies, higher interest rates attract foreign investors looking for better returns. The cash flooding into the economy boosts the local currency. But China's economy is mostly closed, limiting—though not eliminating—the impact of higher rates on the yuan.

The increase in interest rates could actually complicate matters for China on the currency front, said Nicholas Lardy, a specialist in China at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank. Given that Chinese interest rates were already above what developed countries are paying on one-year deposits, and that the market is betting that the yuan will rise over time, the rate increase could serve only to attract more investor money.

Investors suing Washington Mutual Inc., the former owner of the biggest U.S. bank to fail, won certification as a class-action case of their suit alleging shoddy lending practices.

Shareholders who lost money on stock purchased from October 2005 to July 2008 can proceed with claims under a single lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle ruled Tuesday, according to court documents. The judge appointed the New York-based law firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann to lead the plaintiffs' case.

The lawsuit consolidates more than 20 cases filed against Washington Mutual that claim the bank secretly lowered lending standards, artificially inflated home-price appraisals and failed to disclose its deteriorating financial condition when the loans began to fail.

John Wolfe, an attorney representing Washington Mutual defendants, didn't immediately return a voice-mail message seeking comment.

The named plaintiffs in the case include Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, the largest single-profession pension plan in Canada, and four other pension groups, according to court documents.

They seek to represent tens of thousands of shareholders who lost money on three types of preferred stock purchased between October 2005 and July 2008 and certain securities offered by the bank in 2006 and 2007.

The shareholders argued the case should be granted class-action status because their claims are typical of what other investors experienced and are based on common legal issues.

WaMu filed for bankruptcy Sept. 26, 2008, the day after its banking unit was taken over by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Before it failed, Washington Mutual Bank had more than 2,200 branches and $188 billion in deposits.

Thousands of people in Milwaukee are struggling to keep their homes as the city's Common Council calls for drastic action -- a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures.

Officials said more than 6,000 people are in the foreclosure process.

"There are about 5,000 homes currently now in foreclosure that are actually in the city's hands," said Urban Economic Development Association Executive Director Bill Johnson.

WISN 12 News spoke with a homeowner who is facing foreclosure after her husband lost his job.

The woman said the couple contacted their bank to see if they could work out a solution to no avail. She said they eventually had to file for bankruptcy as they desperately tried to modify their home loan.

The woman said the process took about a year, created mounds of paperwork and the couple received no communication from the bank.

Eventually, she said the bank told them they could modify the loan but the end result would cost them more than what their mortgage already was.

Participants in an ERISA plan associated with National City Corporation (National City) will benefit from a proposed $43 million settlement in a class action lawsuit alleging those defendants responsible for administering the National City Savings and Investment Plan (Plan) breached their fiduciary duties under ERISA by making imprudent investments not in the best interests of Plan holders.

ERISA denotes the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, an Act designed to protect participants of investment plans and 401(k) plans by ensuring those responsible for managing such plans and investing on behalf of plan participants do so with the best interests of participants.

It was alleged that the defendants responsible for the employee stock plan allowed the investment of Plan assets in National City common stock or National City Stock Fund units during a time when they knew, or should have known that the investments they were making were imprudent. Further, according to a release from the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, the defendants are alleged to have breached their fiduciary duties by allowing the Plan to invest in Allegiant Funds in violation of ERISA.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing.

The announced settlement of $43 million in the employee savings plan case, as proposed, will be less court-approved legal fees, various other expenses and case contribution awards to named plaintiffs. The remainder, according to the release, will then be allocated to the accounts of Plan participants who saw portions of their Plan accounts invested in National City common stock or fund units in the National City Stock Fund at any time from September 5, 2006 to December 31, 2008 and to Plan participants who held Allegiant Funds in their Plan accounts at any time from March 25, 2002 through December 31, 2009.

A hearing is scheduled for November 30th in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (Eastern Division) before US District Judge Solomon Oliver, Jr.

Any employee investing in an employee 401(k) plan or other ERISA pension plan (that is, protected under ERISA provisions) does so with the hope that prudent investments and management will yield the necessary funds for a comfortable retirement. Beyond that hope is the expectation, regardless of what the market does, that the plan will be managed prudently—with the confidence that if it is not, then ERISA benefits under the 1974 ERISA Act will prevail.

It's been almost two years since the Federal Reserve set interest rates to the current near-zero levels. The Fed has kept the target range for the federal funds rate (the interest rate at which banks lend to each other) between zero and 0.25 percent since December 2008 and has, since March 2009, repeated its pledge to keep rates low for an "extended period." That's a signal that it doesn't plan on changing its tune any time soon, experts say.

On top of record-low interest rates, the Fed has also pursued a strategy called quantitative easing, which involves buying up government securities like treasuries to push interest rates even lower in hopes of stimulating more lending to spur economic activity. The first round of quantitative easing started in 2008, and many experts believe the Fed will announce plans to begin another asset-buying program (referred to as QE2) in its next rate announcement in November. Here are four reasons why another round of asset purchases could be problematic:

Savers are hurting. The yield on the 10-year treasury note has hovered around 2.5 percent for most of the latter half of 2010. Historically, rates have been much higher. In mid-2007, when economic growth was much more robust and demand for treasuries was much lower, 10-year treasuries were yielding as much as 5 percent. Many older investors depend on the income they receive from their investments in high-quality bonds like treasuries, and faced with paltry treasury yields, many are considering whether they should take on more risk. "It forces people out the risk spectrum in order to get yield, and a lot of people that are forced out the risk spectrum shouldn't be forced out the risk spectrum," says Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. Rates can only move higher, and when they do, investors that have moved farther down the duration scale (a measure of interest-rate sensitivity) will feel the pain. When interest rates rise, the price of bonds falls--and longer duration bonds will be hit harder than others.