Economy

Legislation to modify debit-card interchange fees cannot compete with celebrity gossip. It is not surprising that lobbying efforts have changed the minds of 19 senators who formerly aligned themselves with consumers and small banks (to…

The personal savings rate came in at 4.9%, the lowest since October 2008 before the Lehman crisis caused savings rates to jump up. Below are a few charts for a historical perspective.

Although the overall reported headline rate for the GDP remained essentially unchanged, the numbers reflected somewhat weaker consumer contributions and anemic "real final sales".

Listen to what Jeffrey Gundlach has to say about subprime bonds -- yes subprime. Hint: he thinks banks will have to take more credit writedowns.

Australian Professor Steve Keen explains why private sector debt dynamics drove both the Great Depression and the Great Recession.

Apparently, the upcoming film on the credit crisis ‘Too Big To Fail’ can be boiled down in these 80 seconds of preview clips. Enjoy.

An unsustainable rise in debt is, for me, one of the key indicators that the investment-driven model has passed its useful life and is generating negative growth while posting positive growth numbers. This is why I spend so much time trying…

You should notice that the title of this post is “make accounting gains” instead of “earned” because it is not clear at all that US banks earned $29 billion. After all, the FDIC has indicated that these accounting gains are driven by lower…

This is good satire from Stephen Colbert. It reminds me a little of Conan, William Shatner and Sarah Palin doing their poetry readings in 2010.

Typical street review of today’s numbers from Goldman. As suspected, look for continued downward revisions to initial 4% Q2 estimates. And note the graph below showing employment as a % of the population. The economy continues to be demand…