October 2008

Marshall Auerback here. I have a quick thought regarding the credit crisis and bank lending in the US. If the real purpose of the Paulson Plan is recapitalization more than reliquification, and if the Scandinavian public recaps of their…

The deal everyone first expected to happen is now likely to proceed. Wells Fargo is set to buy Wachovia. Earlier this week, we heard that Wachovia was to be acquired by Citigroup, the beleaguered corporate behemoth that has written down…

The unemployment data came out for the month of September 2008 in the U.S. Payrolls fell by 159,000, but the unemployment rate remained the same at 6.1%. The data are consistent with recent weekly unemployment claims data, which point to…

If you don't think this credit crunch is a Main Street event, you must see this video. When a lack of credit availability stops people from getting an education, you have to do something. For those of you watching the equity markets as a…

Below is a link to the Library of Congress (LOC) website and a few links to the Senate Banking Committee site which have the details on the 'Economic Stabilization' Bill which passed the Senate by a vote of 74-25.The Bill, called H.R.1424…

With the Economic Patriot Act past the Senate - including hundreds of billions in pork barrel - sweeteners, it's time to focus in a little on politics. I'll lead off the round-up there, trying to keep it fair despite my obvious…

I try to report on these numbers as objectively as possible, but the drip-drip of negative news out of the U.S. starts to wear on you. Jobless claims were expected to drop substantially after the effects of Hurricane Ike wore off. I was…

Below is an article I wrote that appears in this morning's Guardian Newspaper in the UK. The crux of the article is that European politicians need to realise that their banks are not immune from the crisis that has hit the United States and…

Nationwide released its monthly survey of U.K. house prices and the results are not promising. In September 2008, the month-to-month of 1.7% matched last month's decline, but the annual change in Nationwide's index fell 12.4%, the largest…

Readers,I have noticed recently that Google Reader has been taking an annoyingly long time to update some of my RSS feeds. NewsGator and Microsoft Outlook clients do not seem to have this problem. I have been trying to get a straight…