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Several of the nation’s biggest banks have failed or been absorbed by healthier institutions, leaving three giant “superbanks” with an unprecedented concentration of market power: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

While that may be good news for emerging giants and the failing companies they helped rescue, the new oligopoly raises troubling questions about regulation and competition, analysts and consumer advocates say.

“Bank fees are going up, up, up, and that’s the danger to consumers as more of these banks consolidate,” says Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumer League. “It’s difficult for the average person to get a bank account that doesn’t involve fees, and if you get into financial distress you’re cooked, and you’ll be ‘fee-ed’ to death.”

According to a recently released banking fee study from Bankrate.com, ATM surcharges rose 11 percent this year to an average of $1.97, and the fee for a bounced checks rose 2.5 percent to an average $28.95.

The new snapshot, released Friday by the Labor Department, showed the crucial jobs market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid pace.

The jobless rate zoomed to 6.5 percent in October from 6.1 percent in September, matching the rate in March 1994.

Unemployment has now surpassed the high seen after the last recession in 2001. The jobless rate peaked at 6.3 percent in June 2003.

October’s decline marked the 10th straight month of payroll reductions, and government revisions showed that job losses in August and September turned out to be much deeper. Employers cut 127,000 positions in August, compared with 73,000 previously reported. A whopping 284,000 jobs were axed in September, compared with the 159,000 jobs first reported.

As part of the vetting process, the transition team is reviewing Corzine’s financial and personal documents, the sources said. The sources asked not to be identified because the vetting process is confidential.

Neither Corzine nor his aides would respond to a request for comment.

Corzine, who used to run financial services giant Goldman Sachs, had long dismissed as speculation talk that he might be interested in running the sprawling U.S. Treasury Department. But in recent days he has changed his message, telling a television interviewer “No one’s ever going to say never.”

Corzine said last night that if President-elect Barack Obama asked him to serve in his administration, he would consider the offer — but that he’d rather fight for a second term in New Jersey.

“I’d like to stay here and use New Jersey as a basis” and example for the rest of the country, Corzine said on New Jersey Network from the victory party of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

The governor has long, deep ties to Obama after having been an early advocate for the president-elect’s upstart campaign for U.S. Senate in 2004. Though Corzine backed Obama’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries, the governor quickly moved to renew his relationship with Obama after the president-elect had secured his party’s nomination. Since then, Corzine has played a key role in Obama’s universe as an economic adviser and booster for the incoming president.

The central bank lowered the benchmark rate to 3 percent as policy makers tried to contain the damage caused by a recession. The European Central Bank is due to announce a rate decision at 12:45 p.m. London time. Some investors buy gold as a haven in times of financial turmoil.

“Since mid-September, the global banking system has experienced its most serious disruption in almost a century,” the Bank of England said in a statement. There is a “very marked deterioration in the outlook for economic activity.”

Gold for immediate delivery rose as much as $8.51, or 1.2 percent, to $748.86 an ounce and traded at $748.70 as of 12:36 p.m. in London. Futures for December were $6.20, or 0.8 percent, higher at $748.60 in electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The measure, which passed with 52 percent support Tuesday, will fund the first phase of what is projected to be a $45 billion, 800-mile project built with state, federal, local and private money.

Backers sold the proposal as an innovative alternative to soaring airfares and gas prices. In the closing weeks of the campaign, they touted estimates that it would create nearly 160,000 construction-related jobs and 450,000 permanent jobs.

“In our state, transportation is always a big issue,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California. “A lot of people have a sense that maybe that (bullet train) is something I can use at some point. It’s something they can relate to.”

The first phase of the rail line would link Anaheim, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco. Planners eventually want to include Sacramento, San Diego and Oakland.

The $9.9 billion proposition includes $9 billion for bullet trains and $950 million for conventional commuter and intercity rail, including trains to connect travelers with the high-speed system.

“Californians decided to reduce our oil dependence, to build alternatives to traffic and long airport lines, and to help solve global warming. Californians were also voting to boost the economy,” said Emily Rusch of the California Public Interest Research Group.

High-speed rail lines are well established in Europe and Japan, but not the United States. Amtrak’s Acela Express, linking Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., is the only U.S. rail line that tops the 125 mph considered “high speed” by international standards, and even that line averages far slower over the course of its full run.

California’s plan still needs support from federal and local governments and private investments. Supporters say that with enough money, the first trains could be running in six years and the entire system could be completed by 2020.

Opponents also fear the measure might not pay for itself and require ongoing subsidies. An environmental group, meanwhile, has sued over the proposed route from the Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay area.

Scores of civilians have been killed in U.S. air strikes this year leading to seething resentment against the presence of foreign troops and a rift between Karzai and his Western backers.

Karzai referred to the incident in the Shah Wali Kot district in the southern Taliban heartland of Kandahar province.

“By bombing Afghanistan, the war against terrorism cannot be won,” Karzai told a news conference. “As we speak today, we had again civilian casualties … In Shah Wali Kot of Kandahar we had civilian casualties,” he said.

Karzai did not give any more details but several villagers who had taken a group of wounded to the hospital in Kandahar city said more than 90 people had been killed and dozens more wounded in the air strike Monday, which they said hit a wedding party.

The U.S. military said it was checking reports.

“The coalition and Afghan authorities are investigating reports of non-combatant casualties in the village of Wech Baghtu,” said U.S. forces spokesman Commander Jeff Bender.

The proposed legislation would further punish parents who defied it by taking away their newborn infant. “It targets people who have been the subject of judicial intervention because of their bad parenting,” explained the author of the bill Marjo Van Dijken of the socialist PvDA. “If someone refuses the contraception and becomes pregnant, the child must be taken away directly after birth.”

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I must admit that it shocked me that this law was the brainchild of a socialist. As a confounded psychiatrist friend who deals with troubled children put it, this bill is vaguely reminiscent of the eugenics and sterilisation programmes of the fascist era.

Rather than the altruistic goal of protecting children, one friend thinks that this legislative proposal, which is likely to be defeated, is an attempt to steal the populist thunder of the far right in a society that has veered significantly rightwards in recent years. Another hidden objective could be to reduce the cost to the state of caring for abused children.

The announcement follows the controversy surrounding a September 8 Army Times report (revised on September 30), which revealed that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, fresh from combat duties in Iraq, would be operating inside America for tasks including “civil unrest and crowd control,” a detail that was later denied by Northcom despite the concession that forces would be armed with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to tanks.

“In the next three years the military plans to activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for specialized domestic operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which was created in 2002 for homeland defense missions,” reports the Colorado Independent.

“It’s to help us manage the consequences of a large-scale event,” said Renuart. “We have one [unit] now trained and equipped and assigned to the Northern Command. We’ll grow a second one this calendar year of 2009 and a third one in the calendar year 2010 so we can provide the nation three sets of capabilities that could respond to an event of the size of 9/11 or larger.”

“If somebody were to show up here tomorrow, we would start working with them tomorrow,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

Changes of US administrations historically are periods of heightened risk, but wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an ever present danger of attack by Al-Qaeda make an orderly transition crucial this year.

Whitman said Defense Secretary Robert Gates has undertaken “pretty unprecedented early preparations to minimize disruption while ensuring we provide the most comprehensive guidance possible.”

A Pentagon task force has identified and is highlighting the most important events, milestones and actions that the new administration will face in the first 90 days, he said.

Among them are troop rotations and the presentation of the 2010 defense budget, which is due to go to Congress in February, just weeks after the new president — Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama — moves into the White House. The others were not disclosed.

“Obviously, they (the incoming administration) will give immediate attention to whatever it is they want to, whatever their priorities are,” Whitman said.