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A record 27% of the nation's 14.5 million jobless have been unemployed for 6 months or longer. Their unemployment benefits expire, their homes falling into foreclosure and their lives upended.
The ranks of the long-term unemployed are not expected to recede until job growth picks up in earnest, and if past recessions are any guide, that's not likely to happen for at least another year.
The California Supreme Court has effectively reversed a 2004 San Francisco trial court decision that ordered BofA to pay $284.4 million in damages to more than 1.1 million customers. The California Supreme Court ruled that banks can tap Social Security benefits in bank accounts to cover bounced-check fees, a practice consumer advocates say is abusive because Federal law prohibits Social Security benefits...
I published this on March 3rd, but I read it again today and I feel it has just as much, and maybe more, relevance today than it did then.
I published this article in February, but I still feel that it is applicable to what is happening today
Toyota Motor Corp. (TM 81.24, -0.48, -0.59%) said Tuesday that May U.S. sales declined 40.7% to 152,583 vehicles from 257,406 a year ago.
General Motors Corp. has sold its Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Ltd., according to a report Tuesday in the New York Times. The report cited a person familiar with the Chinese government approval process.
The company acquiring the business has asked for its identity to remain under wraps. But GM's chief executive, Fritz Henderson, described it as a "serious buyer".
Maybe the state borrowed money from China for two years back in 2007 and now has to borrow again to give the Chinese their money back. What happens if, seeing the catastrophic budget situation, lenders decide to shun California altogether?
You may not think it, the way we are told of the failure of the mega banks and industries, but we are.....rich. Americans, Middle Americans are working, making money, paying debts and living their lives of foolish stupidity. This is beca
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Citigroup's run of ignominy has now come to this: losing its coveted spot in the Dow Jones industrial average to a former unit. Dow Jones Indexes said the property and casualty insurer Travelers will replace Citigroup in its flagship 30-stock index of blue-chip stocks, effective June 8.
Funds run by Universa, which is managed and owned by Mr. Taleb's long-time collaborator Mark Spitznagel, last year gained more than 100% thanks to its bearish bets. ...
Commercial property values have fallen 30 percent to 40 percent from their peak a couple of years ago and the market is fraught with peril. Loan defaults have soared. Financing has dried up. Rising vacancy rates combined with declining rents are weakening cash flow.
This is it. After months of speculation, General Motors will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early this morning. The iconic automaker, which was once seen as synonymous with American capitalism and only 10 years ago was the world's largest company, will be nationalized. The United States will invest $30.1 billion in the company, on top of the $20 billion it has already spent on propping up the automaker. The Los Angeles Times points out that GM will now be "the second-largest recipient of bailout money, behind insurance giant American International Group." USA Today notes that GM, unlike Chrysler, will not announce a companywide plant shutdown. Under the current restructuring plan, the U.S. government would get about 60 percent of the new GM, the governments of Canada and Ontario would get 12 percent, 17.5 percent would go to a union retiree-health trust, and bondholders would get 10 percent. The Washington Post devotes much of its piece to looking, once again, at how the
Timothy Geithner's first trip to China as treasury secretary comes at a vulnerable time for the Obama administration. Mired in a brutal recession, the United States needs Beijing to buy more American goods, allow its currency rise and make other moves to narrow an enormous trade gap. The U.S. also needs China's help to confront any military threat from North Korea. Yet Washington's leverage has waned just as China's power over the U.S. has grown. China is now America's biggest creditor. As of March, it held $768 billion of Treasury securities — about 10 percent of publicly traded debt. The U.S. needs China's money to finance U.S. budget deficits, which are soaring as Washington tries to end the recession and bolster the banking system. The administration estimates the budget deficit will hit $1.84 trillion this year. That's four times last year's deficit.
Major change in markets -- bonds and dollar both fall with stocks on same day -- flight to quality now means flight from dollar and treasuries. This may well be the start of the next leg of the economic collapse -- stay tuned.
...state spending cuts so deep and so painful that they could rewrite the social contract between California and its citizens. They could also force a fundamental rethinking of the proper role of government in the Golden State.
Watch the numbers spin.
Entered By: Jack Gregson
General Motors, the struggling automaker, inched closer to a bankruptcy filing on Friday when the company’s largest bondholders reiterated they would reject an offer to convert their debt into G.M. stock.
"All of our discussions that we had, it's very likely that they will go into Chapter 11," said CAW President Ken Lewenza at a Toronto news conference to announce the union's tentative contract agreement with GM.
We are toying with the prospects of hyper inflation, but this clearly shows that such can be avoided the present printing of money is primarily to accommodate the deleveraging taking place in the global credit system. Thus the money is not going dire
Commercial real estate sales volumes were down 75-80% in March, by both count and dollar volume, compared to their levels a year earlier.
“...forces that enabled and even egged on consumers to save less and spend more — easy credit and skyrocketing asset values — could be permanently altered [!] by the financial crisis that spun the economy into recession.” (May 9, 2009)
Our trust should be in princes. After all, Austin Goolsbee, an economic adviser to the president, assures us that Obama will be on the lookout for both bubbles and busts.
Now that earnings season is all but over, Ron looks at a few charts that are revealing of the extent of the damage done to corporate profitability. It is, in a word, breathtaking:
Unless the system is cleaned out of losses, "the way communism collapsed, capitalism will collapse."
"Our nation's system of retirement security is imperiled, headed for a serious train wreck. That wreck is not merely waiting to happen; we are running on a dangerous track that is leading directly to a serious crash that will disable major p
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This Stock of the Day chart does so, showing just how unprecedented the profit destruction has been:
Cards issued by retail stores or banks - law-enforcement officials prefer to call them "stored-value cards" - can bring hundreds of thousands of dollars across borders. Difficult to track and often unreadable by law enforcement, the cards a
