AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
We now know — thanks to, among other things, the revelations of whistle-blowers whose warnings went unheeded — that the explosion in home mortgage defaults and the ongoing credit crisis might have been avoided if the Federal Reserve had…
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
So, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg wants Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. Is she qualified? The New York Times takes a look at her resume. New York Daily News takes a look at her spirit. Is this the rebirth of the Kennedy dynasty? If…
President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Over the past 70 days, federal officials have doled out more than $250 billion in public money as part of the massive Wall Street rescue package passed…
By R.J. Matson, Post-Dispatch
IT’S TIME WE STOPPED lying to our kids.
We tell them that they are our future. We encourage them to follow their dreams and work hard to achieve anything they want. We hammer into their heads that the key…
Tough times at auto dealers
And now a look at last week’s economic news:
Unemployment claims were up and rising. Consumer spending was down and falling. You could shoot a cannon through a lot of new-car showrooms and not hit anyone. General Motors,…
Kimberly White/Bloomberg News
After bailing out banks, investment houses, a big car loan company and AIG insurance (twice), the federal government finally may be getting around to individual homeowners. It’s about time.
After all, it was failing mortgages that fueled this fall’s financial…
Last week’s 18 percent stock market plunge was sparked by fear that the American economy is headed into a deep recession driven by a disastrous worldwide freeze-up of the credit system. Monday’s 11 percent rally reflected hope that the industrial…
As markets slump and banks totter, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has begun the tricky $700 billion task of saving the American financial system. Under the law enacted Friday, Mr. Paulson has 45 days to construct a program.
It’s a high-wire act in…
Either the credit markets will seize up in the next few days, or they won’t.
Businesses either will get the short-term operating loans they need in the commercial paper market, or they won’t. Either they’ll get the money somewhere else (old-fashioned…
Let’s grant that the precarious condition of the country’s financial system requires government intervention on a massive scale. The hands-off-business Bush administration has confessed as much, and no responsible observer claims otherwise - although there is considerable disagreement about the right…
A pretty funny send up of the Nigerian email scam.
Dailykos diarist Devilstower has an excellent post on Congressional action that directly led to economic collapse we are suffering right now.
There’s a huge dose of anti-McCainism in it, but it’s a good (and long) read, putting several recent events in historical…
No, but you . . . you . . . you’re thinking of this place all wrong — as if I had the money back in a safe. The money’s not here. Your money’s in Joe’s house, right next to…
Monday was one of the most wrenching days in the history of the American financial system. One blue-blooded investment bank, Lehman Brothers, sought shelter under Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws, while another, Merrill Lynch & Co., announced it had sold itself at…
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been called the platypus of American business, an ungainly mixture of private business backed by the public purse.
A platypus is one of the few mammals that can lay an egg. Fannie and Freddie laid a…
The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve rode to the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the weekend, promising to lend freely to the giant mortgage companies and provide capital if necessary.
The government’s goal was to fend off…
