House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank announced new legislation Thursday that would increase the involvement of the Federal Housing Administration in the current crisis to help fight the rise of foreclosures. The legislation…
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this foolish habit.–Noel Coward. A group of economists say the US should miss out on a recession this year. This…
The Fed may cut rates between now and its scheduled meeting on March 18, according to Goldman Sachs. The firm said it had previously expected the cuts to come later. Reuters reports "Goldman said…
One of the key measures of consumer confidence fell through the floor. The RBC Cash Index dropped to 33.1 in early March, down from 48.5 in February. The figure was the worst since the…
Today was the day the roof officially fell in on the US economy. News from Europe involving bank trouble at UBS (NYSE: UBS) and an inadequate rescue of Ambac (NYSE: ABK) helped push at…
ChangeWave looked at consumer spending habits between February 18 and February 25. They polled 3,773 people on their spending plans going forward. Thirty-nine percent said that they would spend less over the next 90…
Since the next President will not sit in his or her office until next January, there is little that person can do, directly at least, about the current economic crisis. Many, if not most,…
Recessions make strange bedfellows. Of all the truly huge businesses in the US, save the oil companies, Wal-Mart (WMT) and Microsoft (MSFT) are having unusually good runs. Yesterday, the CFO of Microsoft had the…
The muni markets are getting into more trouble as each day passes. According to Bloomberg "U.S. states and local governments may extend the worst slump in municipal bonds on record as they replace as…
The National Association for Business Economists has just published its poll of economists. It is done twice a year, and was conducted the first two weeks of February. According to Reuters "Of the members…
Every morning traders wake up and hope that the financial services disaster has ended and that housing has reach a nadir. Better go back to bed. According to a study put together by four…
It should come as no surprise that companies which has taken on too much debt over the last three years will start to fail and have to file for Chapter 11. Some of the…
The head of Honda (NYSE:HMC) recently made an interesting observation. He sees sales faltering in some states where housing prices and commodities costs are in trouble. But, looking at the broader US, he sees…
Inflation rose faster than expected last month, up 1% driven high by food prices and gasoline. Looking at the numbers year-over-year, the increase was over 7%. According to MarketWatch "This is the fastest pace…
All the economic news was bad this morning. Alan Greenspan said economic growth in the US had gone to zero and was likely to move negative soon. And, the Association for Business Economics survey…