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In July, Ben Bernanke told a town hall meeting, "I was not going to be the Federal Reserve chairman who presided over the second Great Depression." According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in that regard he's succeeded. Bernanke's rescue of the financial sector in tandem with...
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A spectacular loss of confidence in the safety of financial assets is creating an unprecedented event that strategists are calling " a huge wave of panic ." Three-month U.S. T-bills are yielding 0.0304%, down from 1.50% on Monday as investors flock to the safest short-term assets. "It's...
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The number of trades at exchanges run by the CME Group declined by 32% in August compared to a year ago, the company revealed Wednesday. CME operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and the New York Mercantile Exchange. Combined, an average of 11 million contracts per day...
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Several television financial correspondents were announcing at the beginning of this week that Monday was the first anniversary of the credit squeeze . It is unclear whether any one day can claim that dubious distinction, but August 2007 was certainly a cruel month. During the first full week in August...
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Whatever else is going on in the housing market, it appears that Americans are no longer using their homes as gigantic credit cards to finance new cars, tuition, and vacations. Freddie Mac's report on cash-out refinancing for the first half of 2008 showed that the number of homeowners taking that option...
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In an interview with the Financial Times over the weekend, Minneapolis Fed President Gary Stern (voter) said the credit crunch in the U.S. would last for several more months and conditions could deteriorate further. "I don't think the headwinds have diminished," Stern said. "In fact if anything think...
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Tighter credit and defaults are expected to have a greater effect in 2008 than they did last year, a survey of businesses in 14 countries affected by the fallout found. Businesses expect slower growth and growing defaults in the remainder of the year and into 2009, the survey sponsored by Atradius reported...
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The mortgage crisis has created yet another concern that could directly impact homeowners and, strangely enough, it is Mother Nature. A.M. Best Company, a full-service credit rating organization for the financial industries has raised speculation that the credit crunch may affect the ability of insurers...
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Home builders, who have been feeling the squeeze on the selling side of their business for months, are now reporting that they are caught in a crunch on the development side as money for land acquisition, development, and home construction is drying up. While the spill-over from the subprime crises has...
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The need for public intervention to tackle the credit crunch was "becoming more evident" than ever, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Monday. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said global regimes have so far injected liquidity into markets,...
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Also Read : Clinton Housing Plan - McCain Housing Plan The third candidate to outline his plans for ending the housing market meltdown was Senator Barack Obama . Speaking at Cooper Union in New York recently the senator addressed the need for tightening regulations and reforming the financial regulatory...
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Fannie Mae's Managing Director, Brian Faith, released a statement on Wednesday that gave notice that at least one of the two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that play a major role in the nation's mortgage industry has decided it would be wise to protect its own interests. Government lawmakers...
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The headlines read " Chairman Bernanke Says Fed Ready to Cut Interest Rates as Needed." Well, not exactly. What Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke actually said, in remarks on Thursday was "We stand ready to take substantive additional action as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance...
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A few weeks ago we asked you to tell us what you were seeing out there ; stories about the effects of the subprime debacle and the credit crunch on those who are on the ground and feeling the real impact. If you are a delinquent borrower, what have been your experiences in trying to work with your lender...
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What is happening out there? We know that mortgage companies are closing right and left and that people are being laid off in huge numbers from those companies. Companies such as Countrywide, American Home Mortgage, Capital One and others have issued thousands of pink slips. We hear that 5.12 percent...