MSN Money and The Wall Street Journal have combined to produce an article detailing some of the problems that exist for those with college loans debt. Among the situations cited is a 41-year old MD with $550,000 outstanding college debt. The debt was much less (about $250,000) when this individual graduated from medical school in 2003, but has ballooned to the present amount through mismanagement.
Another case mentioned is a laid-off factory worker with $120 a week garnished from her $300 a week unemployment check to apply against her son’s college loan debt. The son is also unemployed, having lost his $29,000 a year job 8 months ago.
A third case describes a college loan debt that has grown from $28,000 to more than $90,000, with monthly payments that were originally $230 now $816.
How do such cases happen? Read the rest of this entry »
I just came across a great blog with the subject title: http://youarenotsosmart.com/ published by David McRaney, a journalist and broadcast media director. I want to highlight two interesting posts. Read the rest of this entry »
This is an update of an article “Great Day for Goldman” “Great Day for Goldman” that appeared on Seeking Alpha following the SEC press conference announcing the settlement with Goldman Sachs. Read the rest of this entry »
This is an audio tape of President of TradersAudio.com Ben Lichtenstein’s breathless order-taking in the S&P 500 pit in Chicago during Thurday’s unusual trading. Link to audio.
Jan. 22 Oil Service Companies: Time to Buy?
Jan. 22 U.S. Banks to Face New Trading Restrictions
Jan. 23 Housing Double Dip?
Jan. 23 Aftershocks from the Massachusetts Earthquake
Jan. 24 Long Term Unemployment: Less than Actual Out of Work
Jan. 25 Hedge Funds, Investment Banks: When Will They Ever Learn?
Jan. 26 Housing Market Has a Way to Go
Jan. 26 Housing: Government as Casino Player
Jan. 26 New York Fed: Further Investigation Regarding the AIG Affair
Jan. 26 Are Existing Homes and New Homes Following Different Paths?
Jan. 28 Job Recovery Cycle Intact
This fabulous simple graphic from Jessica Hagy, courtesy of http://flowingdata.com, has initiated some very interesting discussion, both serious and humorous.
Read the rest of this entry »
From easy money in Wall Street banking to easy money in Main Street America real estate, the country has been seduced. We now live with the ensuing mess that was begat. I read a comment that talked about the free lunch syndrome, written by a certain “morph366″ on a Seeking Alpha article by another author. I now know that commenter personally as Clive Corcoran, a London private equity manager. At the time this article was written, though, he was known to me only by his pseudonym, taken from the name of his personal blog site.
This article was originally published about five months ago, but I think that with what has unfolded since, it has even greater significance today. The structural problems in our economic theories, financial systems and our individual situations continue to be revealed. Read the entire article at Seeking Alpha.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/131580-the-seduction-of-america
The ratio of failed bank assets to GDP is much larger (seven-fold) than the Great Depression and has an even greater magnitude compared to the S&L crisis. This follow-up to the article below was discussed at http://seekingalpha.com/article/158088-comparing-today-s-bank-crisis-to-the-past
Even when adjusted for inflation and population growth, the 2008-09 banking crisis exceeds by far previous banking crises, including even the Great Depression. There were 10,000 bank failures in the Great Depression, but few of them had branches. Today, a medium sized bank usually has hundreds of branches and the two big failures, Washington Mutual and Wachovia Bank had more than 8,000 branches between them. Thus the number of actual bank locations affected in the current crisis, which is not over, is similar to the entire period of the Great Depression from 1929 to 1941.
When it comes to the amount of money involved, the current crisis has had bank failures 70 times those of the Great Depression. Even when the figures are adjusted for inflation and population growth, the current crisis is still much larger in dollar terms.
Read the entire analysis at TheStreet.com. The numbers are truly astounding. http://www.thestreet.com/story/10589081/1/banking-crisis-dwarfs-depression.html
