Bank uber-analyst Meredith Whitney wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the economy will have more problems as banks take credit cards away from people to prevent bad debt write-offs. She says “Just six…
The head of the IMF is calling the period that the world is in now and is likely to stay in for some time “The Great Recession”. According to Reuters, he said “The IMF…
The US is calling for other nations to put more money into their credit and financial systems to help pull the world out of a deepening recession. One of the problems is that many…
The “Best Financial Firm Rescue of the Year Award” goes to the British government for its new bailout of Lloyds. The program both saves the bank and insures that much of the money put into it…
The economy is losing between 600,000 and 750,000 jobs every month by every measure that the government and analysts use. This rate of job losses may go on for a relatively long period. This…
The Federal Reserve has issued its latest Beige Book ahead of the next FOMC meeting. It shows more pain and more suffering ahed, just like the rest of the economic data we have seen. …
Using the US government’s count, about 2.4 million people lost their jobs in America last year. That does not include people who have been jobless for an extended period and are no longer looking…
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is speaking to the Senate Budget Committee this morning. Bernanke appears support the White House plan to stimulate the economy. He argued that aggressive actions are needed to avoid…
The IMF said that this year will be bad, but it is being accused of being too optimistic. According to Reuters, “The global economic downturn will be considerably deeper than even the International Monetary Fund…
If it was not clear two weeks ago or even last week, the destruction of the economic and business sectors of the world is no longer inchoate. The speed of the destruction has left…
Personal Income & Spending for January have been released. Personal income received by the workforce came in at +0.4%, while spending for durable goods and non-durable goods in the U.S. came in at +0.6%. …
Ever since the Joads left Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl in 1939 and set out for California, people have been flocking to the most populous state in the nation for what seems to have been a…
The Commerce Department has just reported Q4-2008 GDP this morning, and as expected it was much worse then the original estimates. The problem is that the “already bad” expectations turned out to be too…
Most tax plans start with increasing the portion that the very wealthy pay as a percent of their income. That is not just true in America. It is a global way of raising money…
If you thought the Conference Board’s reading of consumer confidence was bad at 37.4 in January, you should see the carnage in February. Economists were expecting a mild decline from already-suppressed levels down to…