ON AIR NOW
Click to Play
Note that while the Fed still published M1 (narrow money, currency plus demand deposits) and M2 (M1 plus time deposits, savings accounts, and non-institutional money market funds), it stopped reporting M3 (M2 plus large time deposits, institutional m
Financial conditions are continuing to worsen at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, leading investors to prepare for a government bailout of the housing giants even as the Treasury Department and the companies say such taxpayer intervention will not be nece
Yes, America's economy is a war economy. Not a "manufacturing" economy. Not an "agricultural" economy. Nor a "service" economy. Not even a "consumer" economy.
Before World War II, Japan's yen was two to the dollar. After they lost the war, the yen was 500 to the dollar. That's a collapse. That was also a bottom. These are not predictions for the U.S., but I'm saying that things get pretty bad
Foreclosures ranged from 22.2 percent of resold homes in Orange County last month to 64.4 percent in Riverside County. MDA DataQuick said foreclosures were at record highs and continue to be "the dominant factor" driving sales.
Oil, it's the lifeblood of our society. It's given us the freedom and wealth we have today. It's given us automobiles and machinery and greased the wheels of the industrial revolution. What if the price of oil wasn’t really up? What if it
America's biggest banks have suffered unprecedented losses from the ongoing credit crisis, and that's made some investors question whether the big financial conglomerates should be broken up in order to survive.
Last week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced record losses, and so had most reporting corporations. Unemployment was mounting, the foreclosure crisis was deepening, state budgets were in shambles, and massive bailouts were everywhere.
Growing evidence suggests American consumers should be bracing for double-digit inflation, probably as early as 2009. The relative price stability of the past 15 years is giving way to worsening inflation, despite the recent softening of oil prices.
As one family gets a ‘great deal’ 100 have more equity stripped away, 50 are thrown into an incurable negative-equity situation and 25 default as a result. This leads to even more inventory. It is a vicious cycle; a feedback loop from which there is
The drop, from May 2007 to May of this year, was even more severe than the 18 percent decline from April 2007 to April 2008, and the first-ever, double-digit decline of 13 percent from March 2007 to March 2008.
Earlier this year some economists were talking about the world “decoupling” from the U.S., making it through an American downturn relatively unscathed, but the latest data from Europe and Asia appears to be putting holes in that theory and it’s bad n
It's been 75 years since the federal government, on the spurious grounds of fighting the Great Depression, ordered the confiscation of all monetary gold from Americans, permitting trivial amounts for ornamental or industrial use.
In a "whodunnit" that has gripped Wall Street for months, many traders and senior executives at Bear Stearns have become convinced the firm was brought down by a conspiracy of rivals and hedge funds, who spread malicious rumors and ultimate
The ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee said the government is headed toward bankruptcy. "We know that for a fact,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) . "All the actuaries, all the objective scorekeepers of the federal government, are predi
Some critics say the failures aren't happening fast enough. They say regulators are keeping some troubled banks on life support by allowing them to spend money to stay in business that should be reserved to cover loan losses after the bank fails
Banks' losses from the U.S. subprime crisis and the ensuing credit crunch crossed the $500 billion mark as writedowns spread to more asset types. The writedowns and credit losses at more than 100 of the world's biggest banks and securities fi
Fannie Mae is operating at a gross leverage multiple of 72.7 (total assets comprised primarily of mortgage loans, divided by shareholder equity). In other words, a slight 1.4% deterioration in the value of Fannie's book of assets will wipe out al
However, this is a best-case scenario, as it is widely thought the Zillow valuation estimates are high because they do not take in account many of the actual foreclosure related sales that made up some 42% of all sales in the state of CA
The failure of IndyMac Bancorp Inc. and seven other banks this year may erase as much as 17 percent of a government insurance fund and raise premiums for all banks, from Franklin National of Minneapolis to Bank of America Corp.
Recently Congress passed the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act., also known as the Housing Bill. I was asked how I could vote against a bill to help American homeowners, but this bill has more to do with helping big banks
There's a new land grab starting in America. Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of
Hunt has done a lot for Bush and vice-versa. Bush named Hunt in 2001 to his President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and reappointed him five years later. Hunt also serves on the National Petroleum Council that gives industry advice to Bush’s
Freddie Mac's CEO collected $38 million while the company he ran fell into a financial morass. He's just one example of corporate chiefs who want taxpayers to bail them out.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts that global losses tied to the credit crisis will be $945 billion. It's a widely used number, but Sonders thinks it's "potentially very conservative." So how high could losses go? Sonders po
There's a new land grab starting in America. Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says there's a lot of truth to President George Bush's comment that Wall Street "got drunk and now it's got a hangover," and it will aid understanding of the current economic climate.
Since the credit crisis erupted a year ago, the Bush administration has presided over one of the broadest expansions of the government into private lending in U.S. history, risking public money to prop up financial firms both large and small.
So the government can fix them up over the weekend.
The Seattle-based bank reported a $3 billion second-quarter loss last month -- the biggest quarterly loss in its history -- as it increased its loss reserves to more than $8 billion to cover souring loans in its mortgage portfolio.
