Paulson Explains the Financial Crisis
December, 2 at 5:52 pm
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Layoffs Tracker
December, 2 at 1:18 pm
Company Number of layoffs
Washington Mutual 9,200
Bank of America 30,000
Wells Fargo 80% wholesale mortgage jobs
Weather Channel unknown
Associated Press 400
JPMorgan Chase 10%
Sun Microsystems 6,000
Citigroup 53,000
BT Group 10,000
Circuit City 7,300
Deutsche Post 9,500
Nortel Networks 1,300
Motorola 3,000
Ford 2,260
General Motors 1,900
Fidelity Investment 1,288
Mattel Inc 1,000
Goldman Sachs 3,200
Merrill Lynch 10,000
Barclay’s 3,000
Wachovia 6,950
UBS 2,000
Credit Suisse 1,500
Applied Materials 1,800
Morgan Stanley 4,000
Posted in The Economy | 2 Comments »
Less available credit? I hope so
December, 2 at 7:58 am
Nothing could be better news to my ears that seeing credit card companies cutting the credit they provide to American consumers. Obviously, the average American consumer has not been responsible managing credit so this is definitely good news.
According to Yahoo Finance:
(Reuters) - The U.S. credit-card industry may pull back well over $2 trillion of lines over the next 18 months due to risk aversion and regulatory changes, leading to sharp declines in consumer spending, prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney said.
The credit card is the second key source of consumer liquidity, the first being jobs, the Oppenheimer & Co analyst noted.
“In other words, we expect available consumer liquidity in the form of credit-card lines to decline by 45 percent.”
Mortgages and credit cards are now dominated by five players who are all pulling back liquidity, making reductions in consumer liquidity seem unavoidable, she said.
“We are now beginning to see evidence of broad-based declines in overall consumer liquidity.”
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Gloom is back!!!
December, 1 at 5:38 pm
Just another day in this doom and gloom economy. These are some of the headlines.
Posted in Politics, California Housing Crash, The Economy, Real Estate | No Comments »
Cities lay off workers increasing unemployment
December, 1 at 2:36 pm
The US Economy is collapsing and cities are hurting bit time. This from USA Today:
Battered by record foreclosures and falling tax revenue, cities are laying off workers, raising fees and closing libraries and recreation centers.
“Almost every city in the country is feeling the impact,” says Chris Hoene, director of policy and research at the National League of Cities.
A survey in September found that city finance officers expect revenue from property, sales and income taxes to decrease 4.3% this year, Hoene says.
The problem will be worse next year, he says, because there is a lag between current economic conditions and when they affect city revenue.
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Welcome to the US Recession
December, 1 at 1:49 pm
It’s here folks!! This from the LA Times:
WASHINGTON — A panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research says the U.S. economy fell into a recession last year.
The NBER says its group of academic economists who determine business cycles met and decided that the U.S. recession began in December 2007.
Many economists believe the current downturn will last until the middle of 2009 and will be the most severe slump since the 1981-82 recession.
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Frugal times?
December, 1 at 12:09 pm
I hope that Americans are finally realizing that we can’t continue living beyond our means. Maybe, this financial crisis will bring some positive change to our country. This article in the New York Times shows you how Americans have been spending money they don’t have and how some of them are changing their ways.
Meet the Joneses, two Silicon Valley engineers who, in many ways, seem to have it all — a home they bought for $850,000, two children and a combined income of about $250,000 a year. But despite their apparent wealth, Kirsten and Mike Jones financed much of their lifestyle with borrowed money.
Now, like many overspent Americans, the Joneses are deeply in debt. They owe $100,000 on their credit cards, and the tax assessor says their home is worth $100,000 less than they paid for it. To turn their finances around, they’re embracing an idea so quaint it might be cool again: living within their means.
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Bailout of the day: 800 billion to buy mortgage-backed securities
November, 25 at 3:03 pm
You didn’t think we were going to go one single day without a bailout, did you? Of course, the Federal Government never fails to disappoint us and it is once again throwing money at the problem trying to re-inflate the housing and credit bubbles.
According to Bloomberg:
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve took two new steps to unfreeze credit for homebuyers, consumers and small businesses, committing up to $800 billion.
The central bank will purchase as much as $600 billion in debt issued or backed by government-chartered housing-finance companies. It will also set up a program of $200 billion to support consumer and small-business loans, the Fed said in statements today in Washington.
With today’s announcement, the central bank is starting to use some of the unorthodox policy tools that Chairman Ben S. Bernanke outlined as a Fed governor six years ago. Policy makers are aiming to prevent a financial collapse and stamp out the threat of deflation.
Posted in Politics, Bailout News, The Economy | No Comments »
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows more home price declines
November, 25 at 10:46 am
Home prices across the US kept declining even before October when things got really really bad. That according to the S&P/Case-Shiller report released today. Here are the numbers: 
Posted in Bailout News, Politics, California Housing Crash, Florida Housing Crash, The Economy, Real Estate | No Comments »
Even the Realtors had a hard time putting lipstick on this pig
November, 24 at 11:42 am
The National Association of Realtors released their October existing-home sales data and as expected the numbers were horrible. The interesting news here is that this time around the Realtors are not even trying to spin the bad news. Here are some of the statements in the Realtors news release:
“Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 4.98 million units in October from a downwardly revised pace of 5.14 million in September, and are 1.6 percent below the 5.06 million-unit level in October 2007.”
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said consumer hesitation is understandable. “Many potential home buyers appear to have withdrawn from the market due to the stock market collapse and deteriorating economic conditions,” he said.
“Total housing inventory at the end of October slipped 0.9 percent to 4.23 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 10.2-month supply2 at the current sales pace, up from a 10.0-month supply in September.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Politics, Bailout News, Real Estate | 2 Comments »
