America's Lost Decade

It is difficult to muster any sympathy whatsoever for the goddamned banks. This is a crisis entirely of their own manufacture. Yes, the housing market went down -- which anyone with an ounce of sense could have predicted, and did. Any bank betting the entirety of its assets many-times-over on that not happening deserves to fail as spectacularly [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 17:17:08

Blog posts (412) | Videos (197)
 

As Economic Suffering Spreads, So Do Financial Scams

RISMEDIA, March 6, 2009-(MCT)-Researchers say people are more susceptible to investment scams such as Ponzi and pyramid schemes after going through adverse life events-a job loss, foreclosure or some other financial hardship. So it’s not surprising that many experts think the nation’s deepening economic crisis is creating a whole new universe of [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 21:29:06

Health Care Summit: Quick Takes

President Obama held a White House summit on health care yesterday with, as the Times reported, “150 participants, including members of Congress, doctors and leaders of labor unions, business groups, hospitals, insurance companies and consumer ... the process forward. It’s doubtful that voters would penalize him for a slop factor of a couple [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 17:35:00

Set Your Sights High or Stop Dreaming This Sunday?

We saw a gorgeous condo on our way home yesterday that ignited my home buying urge. The price of the two bedroom was just right ( ... , please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Personal Finance Articles I think Clever ... out what The Federal Reserve is and what it actually does over at Investing School. Personal Finance Articles [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 14:01:50

Pauline Millard: Is He Just Not That into You, or He Is On Something?

Last night at dinner an attractive friend named Sasha told a story about a guy who she had been seeing for the past three months. He recently almost lost his job, starting acting strange and then broke up with her in a coldly written e-mail. In an even stranger twist, he blocked her from his Facebook page [more...]

Date: 2009-03-04 18:17:59

Financial Fraud: 6 Simple Steps to Protect Yourself

Financial fraud doesn’t start out ugly… It all began in 1994, when one of my brother’s college buddies began talking about the big checks his girlfriend was receiving as a member of a hot, new Multi-Level-Marketing “opportunity.” His friends joined and soon convinced others to enter. Business was booming. Then the money stopped [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 11:00:29

Is the US Treasury the Next Bear Stearns?

Gap management . A very easy and straight-forward concept that has been butchered by countless firms, laid bare by the financial crisis ... out busted constituencies - banks, finance companies, mortgage holders, assorted industries - to begin with (no mean feat), the question that must be asked is: how is the Government going to finance [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 03:04:35

Threading Carefully In The CLICO Debate

Minister of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment and Urban DevelopmentThe CLICO Affair has occupied our region for more than five weeks now ... our Pan-Caribbean companies, and the global financial meltdown which has dried-up cash flow for many ... Opposition by their admission used the right to table a motion of no-confidence in Minister of Finance [more...]

Date: 2009-03-09 00:30:31

World Bank Financial Report Grim

Developing nations are facing a massive financing shortfall of up to $700 billion this year as private investment evaporates and global trade collapses, threatening to return many countries to the days of heavy reliance on foreign aid, the World Bank warned yesterday. In a report released ahead of a major summit of finance ministers [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 21:47:14

World Bank Financial Report Grim

Developing nations are facing a massive financing shortfall of up to $700 billion this year as private investment evaporates and global trade collapses, threatening to return many countries to the days of heavy reliance on foreign aid, the World Bank warned yesterday. In a report released ahead of a major summit of finance ministers [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 21:47:14

My Fellow Conservatives, Let’s Be Bad Guys!

No matter what we do, we're painted as the villains. So let's twirl our mustaches and get to work. March 6, 2009 - by Stephen GreenPage 1 of 2  Next ->By the numbers: since President Barack Obama was sworn in, the financial markets have dropped to ten-year lows, housing prices are off by ten percent or more, nearly a million jobs have been lost, [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 08:35:17

The U.S. Financial System: A Flimsy House of Paper Promises

Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Phil S. sent me the essay titled “Government: A Successful Failure” by Robert Anderson, erstwhile professor of economics at Hillsdale College and executive secretary of FEE, and posted at LewRockwell.com. He writes, “What is ignored throughout all this political posturing has been the core cause of today’s financial [more...]

Date: 2009-03-04 21:10:53

Silver Lining and Lesson Department

A compressed portrayal of US failures evident in the current crisis may arise from the following list of representations: (A) ... ; (B) industries : mortgage origination, mortgage finance, insurance, commercial banking, rating agencies, investment banking, automobile manufacturing and finance; (C) regulators : state mortgage [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 18:24:42

Are Steele's Days As RNC Chair Numbered?

Couple of pretty significant developments since last night that make me wonder whether newly-minted RNC Chairman Michael Steele won't survive the ... last month on a different campaign finance issue which is now being investigated by the FBI ... Tyson, incidentally). According to campaign finance records, reports the Post, the payments were [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 03:58:56

Why You Always Need to Check Your Statements

It is not what you expect but what you inspect. I noticed that my Wells Fargo basic business account charged me a $12 “monthly service fee” when I was looking over my statement. Apparently, in order for the fees to be waived, I need either: a $6,000 average balance (calculated per day) or be enrolled with their merchant services ( [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 14:00:30

Why Don’t Young People Care About Finances?

This is a guest post by Adam Goodman , author of “ Following The Goods .” If you like what you see here, please check out his weblog and subscribe to his RSS feed . It’s unfortunate, but my story isn’t original. I’m 29, educated, and up until four years ago, I never saw the need to understand how to manage my finances [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 11:00:02

Lawyers With Bruno Connections For Bruno

In the dog-bites-man category of news, we bring you the following A group of Capital Region attorneys with longstanding ties to former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno have formed a "Lawyers for Bruno" coalition and announced plans to review the federal influence-peddling indictment he is facing, which they insist has a "curious construct [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 18:54:33

Root Cause Of The Economic Meltdown: Our Inside-The-Beltway Political Class, Particularly The GOP & Blue Dogs In Thrall To Corporate Bribes

Perhaps if everyone in the country were to read the detailed 231-page report from Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation, we would decide, as a society, that the costs of allowing special interests to finance ... , Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 14:00:00

NY Times Says GOP Senator Bunning 'Bit of a Screwball,' May Be Mentally Unfit

New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich specializes in spunky profiles of politicians -- hostile profiles of conservatives, flattering ones of liberals. His latest, on controversial Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, " Republicans Looking for a Reliever in Kentucky ," fell safely into the former category, crammed with personal attacks ( [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 23:00:59

From Overwhelmed To In Control

When it comes to managing our personal finances, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed.  Here are some steps we’ve taken, over the past four years, so that we feel in control.  We have - Established An Emergency Fund I cannot overstate the value of our emergency fund.  On several occasions, we have had to deal with unplanned-for expenses [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 11:45:50

Not All Republicans Like Being Compared To Nazis-- Another Steele Blunder

Maybe Michael Steele thinks it's a way of currying favor with Limbaugh's crowd or maybe he thinks he can strong-arm Specter into voting against Employee Free Choice, but the hapless RNC chair reiterated his threat to finance a primary ... director. There is no finance director. There is no communications director. Many lesser positions [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 18:00:00

Links 3/5/09

Bionic eye gives blind man sight BBC Lighting Up the Darkness in Rural Africa Eric Taub German industrial orders in free fall Eurointelligence Martin Feldstein and Simon Johnson on the U.S.'s Lost Decade Paul Kedrosky Rethinking subsidized finance Steve Waldman If this becomes Obama's war, it will poison his presidency Seumas Milne [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 08:07:48

Krugman: Socialism NOW!!

Posted by Bill Anderson at March 6, 2009 06:17 AMNo more Mr. Nice Guy from Paul Krugman. If we want economic recovery, then socialism is the only path. Today's column is one of those really frustrating pieces that we sometimes get from the Great Nobel Laureate.Once in a while (kind of like the broken clock that tells time correctly twice a day) [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 12:17:21

Will Creativity and Innovation Be Stifled by the Bailout?

SimplyForties is a 47-year old single mother of a college-aged son who is navigating her way through midlife and documenting it at SimplyForties , where she writes about personal finance, relationships, grown children, the environment and social responsibility. She lives in a small rural town in far west Texas where she tries to live a better [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 15:53:07

On Going Galt

I can’t help but feel that threatening to withdraw from economic production , ala Atlas Shrugged ’s John Galt, is a certain kind of libertarian-conservative’s version of progressives threatening to move to Canada. For my part, I can’t imagine what would make me want to stop working, and each new president makes me want to move to Canada [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 22:46:02

Opinion: Why those arguing for a co-investment fund should look at the DFC history

By Brent Wheeler Many policy makers and commentators have a short memory when it comes to running the type of public-private investment fund or ... introduce” so called merchant banking to N.Z. and non retail commercial finance – both debt and equity – ... . It’s worth looking at the history of the Development Finance Corporation of New Zealand [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 22:55:40

Live TV App Coming to the iPhone?

When The Business Insider reported recently that PacketVideo , a mobile multimedia software company, was releasing an iPhone app with Live TV, ... in their press release and will eagerly follow updates to this story.  Yahoo Finance reports further ... channels and on-demand video clips. PV’s first ever commercial application for the iPhone [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 14:10:55

How Will Better Place’s Business Model Hold Up in the Downturn?

Better Place Founder and CEO Shai Agassi’s vision of building out charging infrastructure and battery-swapping stations for electric vehicles was never going to be easy to implement. But turmoil in the world’s financial markets and mounting deficits in government budgets have raised new hurdles for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 08:00:47

Furthering my understanding of the money from money theory

By divorced one like Bush I'm reading Kevin Phillips “Bad Money”. I want to understand where this idea that money is made from money comes from. On page 61 he writes: In 1996 a much discussed article in Foreign Policy titled “Securities: The New World Wealth Machine” had set out the ultimate paper entrepreneurial opportunity: [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 12:00:00

Steele Rejects Calls For His Resignation: ‘Not Me Baby! Not Happening’

In a memo to her fellow RNC members yesterday, Dr. Ada Fisher said that their newly elected chairman, Michael Steele, ... : On the organizational side, Steele does not have a chief of staff, a political director, a finance director or a communications director. Last week, one of the two men sharing the job of interim finance [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 17:00:57

GE Finance Chief Calls Market Fears 'Overdone'

Facing a precipitous slide in its share price, General Electric is mounting a defense of its financial strength in hopes of reassuring jittery stock and bond investors. G.E.'s chief financial officer, Keith S. Sherin, appeared on CNBC Thursday morning and said that market fears about the conglomerate were "overdone." "We do not have a time [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 13:10:19

Bash Compactor: Getting Laid Off Is Still Getting Laid

The Fashion Meets Finance Party Broke bankers and struggling models mobbed the rooftop of the Empire Hotel last night for the latest installment of Fashion Meets Finance. A tipsy brunette on crutches was trying to put her Burberry coat on so she could leave, but guys wearing suits sans ties kept jostling her as they moved past. Struggling [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 00:15:26

Sunday Talking Heads: March 8, 2009

Spring Forward It's Morningtime! Washington Journal:   7:30am – Steven Thomma , McClatchy Newspapers, White House Correspondent.  8am – Nicholas Lardy , Peterson Institute for Int'l Economics, Senior Fellow.  8:30am – Jonathan Moreno , University of Pennsylvania, Bioethics Professor; David Prentice , Family Research Council, [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 11:09:07

Congressmen, Jesuits and Ashley Judd target mountaintop removal

The movement to end mountaintop removal mining is picking up steam. This week a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers introduced a bill that aims to halt the dumping of waste from mountaintop removal mining into streams. Meanwhile, a Jesuit university in Silicon Valley has divested its holdings in a leading mountaintop removal mining company, [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 20:36:32

Berkshire, G.E. and a World of Worry

How skittish are the debt markets these days?Consider these data points from a recent analysts’ report: ... of Berkshire, the holding company of Warren E. Buffett, one of the world’s most prominent investors, than ... to Bloomberg News that this could be a factor in Berkshire’s swap trading: Holders of the stock may [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 18:01:01

Tip’d: A Community for Financial News, Ideas, and Tips

Writing Get Rich Slowly is a lot of fun. I used to worry that I’d run out of ideas, but that’s never going to be a problem ... , I could sustain ten personal-finance blogs for decades. No joke. For a long time, my favorite source of ideas was pfblogs.org , which “aggregates” articles from hundreds of personal-finance sites [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 21:00:41

How to Fix GE, Quick

Mark McQueen ( Wellington Financial ) submits: The investment world is now worried about how the General Electric (GE:NYSE) “situation” will turn out. Will they lose their Triple A credit rating? Will the finance division eat the parent company alive? Who wants to wait to find out how this movie ends? Complete [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 03:57:21

Obama Weekly Address: Toward A Better Day

In his March 7th weekly address, the President capped off a busy week in Washington remarking on new lending guidelines aimed at lowering mortgage payments; an initiative to generate funds for small business and college loans; the release of his administration’s first budget which includes $2T in deficit reduction, [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 22:20:46

Robert Weissman: Wall Street's Best Investment II: 12 Deregulatory Steps to Financial Meltdown

What can $5 billion buy in Washington? Quite a lot. Over the 1998-2008 period, the financial sector spent more than $5 billion on U.S ... , refused to impose new regulations on rapidly evolving and mushrooming areas of finance, and shunned ... Act of 1933 and related rules, which prohibited banks from offering investment, commercial banking [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 19:36:22

Japanese Scandals Inadvertently Intervene to Soften Yen

The Japanese yen (JPY) is still “relatively” strong, but it has weakened by a pretty significant amount against the US$, nearly 10 points, ... have thought the Ministry of Finance ran out of patience and intervened. Well, in fact, it kind of did in a sense, since the now disgraced former Finance Minister Nakagawa couldn’t handle his glass [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 21:35:30

How Not To Manage A Financial Crisis (Part 1)

“Saying that the situation is the same for all central and eastern European states, I don’t see that……you cannot compare the dire situation in Hungary with that of other countries.” Angela Merkel, Brussels, Sunday “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” Tolstoy In Europe, [more...]

Date: 2009-03-04 19:12:00

Weekly Roundup - Daylight Savings Edition

Today is Daylight Savings for most of the US, so I hope you remembered to set your clock forward an hour last night ... be Spring. And I know my wife and I are ready for some warm weather! Recommended Personal Finance ... losses on. I was rebalancing and needed those funds elsewhere anyway. Personal Finance Carnivals [more...]

Date: 2009-03-08 12:18:34

Roundhouse politics proving too sick to reform health care

We know that the polls have reported consistently over the last year that health care is a priority for New Mexicans and their fellow citizens around the United States. In fact, health care reform was important enough to merit a special legislative session last summer, resulting in a stalemate over Gov. Bill Richardson’s proposals [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 14:09:52

Cash-Bleeding Mag Editor Recommends Buying a House [Recessionomics]

Yes, sure, ok, Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman . You go on TV and claim this year is shaping up as an extraordinary time to buy a home. That's a fine and sensical thing for the editor of a finance magazine to be saying. Cause hey, there's so much easy credit around, right? And the value certainly won't go down! You should [more...]

Date: 2009-03-04 22:21:52

Freeman Was Too Pro-Saudi Said JIM BAKER<--> Chinese Dissidents Protest Appointment

Now "Israel-lobby" conspiracy theorists like MJ Rosenberg will claim that James "F**K the Jews" Baker was just a shill for the for the Israel lobby, but this find by Mark Hemmingway of NRO is priceless. He sorted through the former Secretary of State's Book, and only twice was Freeman's name mentioned, each time he felt that Chas Freeman was " [more...]

Date: 2009-03-07 23:00:05

Loose Change: 3/6/09

mint.com Recessions, in time. Personal Finance: -Crunching the differences for puzzled insurance-info seekers between ARRA and COBRA. ... . What about the health of personal-finance websites? NetBanker -Figuring out whether the famed ... Other Lint: -Personal-finance budgeting site Mint.com made this nifty chart charting past [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 15:06:34

Step-by-Step Guide to a Healthy Emergency Fund [Money]

An emergency fund may seem like a luxury in the midst of a recession, but if you don't have one, now's the time to start it. Photo by Tracy O . Personal finance weblog The Simple Dollar details how to build a big, healthy emergency fund a little at a time—so even if you're not in a great place with your income, you can still take [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 22:30:00

Technology Adoption (2 of 4)

As I referenced in my prior entry , I'm reviewing Sun's three major strategic imperatives, and our progress going in to next fiscal year. Our strategic imperatives, in order, are: 1. Technology Adoption 2. Commercial Innovation ... like a commercial relationship." In a nutshell, that's adoption in action. Change in IT isn't [more...]

Date: 2009-03-06 16:35:00

Hypocrisy Be Damned! SteelerBaby Musn't Obey

Faithful Steeler fan and loyal HuggingHaroldReynolds reader Nathan penned this piece for HHR after the issue caught his attention in a Pittsburgh City Paper article . --------------- Shepard Fairey who created the HOPE image/poster/t-shirt/tattoo idea, etc of President Obama is threatening to sue over the word OBEY [more...]

Date: 2009-03-05 23:14:00

The Downfall of the American Consumer

HSBC said it was cutting 6,100 jobs… closing offices all over America. Angela Merkel to Eastern Europe: Drop Dead! You remember that famous cover story of the New York Daily News? New York was nearly bankrupt in 1975. The city asked the feds for a bailout. To his everlasting credit, Gerald Ford had the backbone to just say ‘no [more...]

Date: 2009-03-04 21:07:27

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