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By Karen Connelly
$11.90
By Elliot D. Cohen
$12.38
$35
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John Darkow, Cagle Cartoons, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri —
Posted on May 12, 2013
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Flickr/Adam Jones
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“The increase in the amount of defaulted loans among poor students comes as President Barack Obama says he wants to expand access to college for working-class families and increase funding for the Perkins program,” Bloomberg reports.
Posted on Feb 5, 2013
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Flickr / Veronica V (CC-BY-SA)
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may not be popular with some conservatives, but the CFPB and its stealthily appointed Director Richard Cordray are here to stay, and the watchdog agency is kicking into action by making debt collectors and credit rating companies accountable for their actions.
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Richard Newton (CC-BY)
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The same ratings firm that held the United States hostage to its debt demands and gave the thumbs up to toxic mortgage assets is again in the news for bungling things. Standard & Poor’s accidentally announced a downgrade Thursday of France’s AAA credit rating.
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Pavel Constantin, Cagle Cartoons, Romania —
Posted on Oct 2, 2011
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Flickr / Vaedri1
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In the aftermath of the stock market failure of 2008, another type of economic bubble is swelling: student debt. And it’s no surprise, since Congress has done nothing to change the lending practices that brought the U.S. to the brink three years ago. (more)
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Paresh Nath, Cagle Cartoons, The Khaleej Times, UAE —
Posted on Aug 15, 2011
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White House / Pete Souza
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Standard & Poor’s, one of those ratings agencies that made a living signing off on toxic assets, has once again thrust itself into the spotlight by downgrading Uncle Sam’s credit outlook from “stable” to “negative.” As a consolation prize, S&P let us keep our AAA rating.
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Flickr / soathevy
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New rules curbing credit card company shenanigans took effect Sunday, as restrictions on “unreasonable late payment and other penalty fees” will now block the companies from charging excessive levies if users, to cite just one choice example, do not use their cards.
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Flickr / jpellgen
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After the Dow’s freaky dip last week, Monday’s news that the U.S. stock market was closing in on its biggest day in terms of gains this year might just boost some spirits on and off the trading floor.
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U.S. Department of State
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John Thain is back. The ex-CEO of Merrill Lynch, who also once held top posts at Goldman Sachs and the New York Stock Exchange, has returned to the Wall Street fold, this time as chairman and CEO of the CIT Group. However, this time, one imagines, he won’t have a $35K commode at his disposal.
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Flickr / edEx
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After a smidgen of good economic news in November, the U.S. economy unexpectedly shed 85,000 more jobs in December, continuing a nearly two-year trend and keeping the unemployment rate at 10 percent.
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about.com
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The government-run TARP program is preparing to shift its focus from large banks—such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America—to smaller banks, noting that small businesses are still struggling to get access to credit.
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NASA / U.S. Treasury
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President Obama has said he doesn’t want public money going into a “black hole,” but his administration’s bank bailout looks more and more like an abyss of cosmic proportions. Not only are the bailed-out banks lending less than before, the Treasury Department appears to be engaging in creative math to obscure the gravity of the situation.
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Flickr / stan
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Like an abused spouse, America continues to stand by the banks, hoping they’ll change their ways. TARP funds were supposed to trickle down to the average taxpayer, but Congress is now investigating complaints that bailed-out banks such as Bank of America and Citigroup are jacking up interest rates and engaging in predatory lending.
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icsd.k12.ny.us
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The rationale of the TARP bailout’s “capital-injection program”—providing banks with capital that will increase loans to consumers and businesses—has apparently been forgotten by the 20 largest banks that received TARP money. A Treasury Department survey has found that lending in the last quarter of 2008 was stagnant, or even slightly declined, despite $250 billion in capital-injection funds.
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willows-journal.com
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While $700 billion was given to the banks and credit institutions that haphazardly pushed forward our current economic fiasco, millions of homeowners at risk of foreclosure may now be given only about one-tenth of that figure—$75 billion—in an effort to slow the deterioration of the housing market.
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By Marie Cocco — Well, that didn’t work out. In pushing for a new financial industry bailout, Treasury Secretary Geithner came across like a banker trying to do a politician’s job. Obama owes us some hands-on involvement.
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Flickr / hthg1983
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The vice president let it slip Sunday that the $700 billion TARP bailout bill could have a sequel. Also, Nancy Pelosi indicated that Congress might dole out more funds to financial institutions. Let’s see, that’s $700 billion on TARP, $850 billion for the still-pending stimulus package, plus the mysterious billions they’re tossing around at the Federal Reserve. ... Here’s hoping China doesn’t cut up our national credit card.
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By Marie Cocco — Remember this, President Obama: There are few Washington traditions as annoying as the cultish worship of bipartisanship, for it ignores the simple fact that sometimes one party gets things disastrously wrong.
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By David Sirota — With the release of three new reports, there’s no debate anymore about who was correct and who wasn’t concerning the economic collapse and the Wall Street bailout. The studies prove that progressive critics were right and the Washington ideologues and the pundits were wrong.
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Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner —
Posted on Dec 9, 2008
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finance.google.com
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In a little over two weeks, the Dow has tumbled more than 2,000 points as bad economic news continues to pile up. Word on Thursday that jobless claims hit a 16-year high, combined with a dreary outlook for Detroit and a lack of confidence in major financial institutions, helped drive the DJIA down to 7,552.29.
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telegraph.co.uk
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Analysts believe the economy is already in “horrific shape”—with news this month of record-breaking drops in the cost of living and new home construction—and is inching closer to a dangerous deflationary period, which could worsen the current economic crisis by making debts even harder to repay.
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Flickr / Svadilfari
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Not everyone is feeling the credit crunch: The DNC is borrowing $10 million to spend on Senate and House races. Encouraged by polls, the party wants to win as many seats as possible before the public stops hating on the GOP.
Posted on Oct 28, 2008
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Federal Reserve
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Ben Bernanke doesn’t really care if you call it a recession or, in his words, “a very serious slowdown in the economy.” Whatever it is, the chairman of the Federal Reserve thinks a new stimulus package is needed to get those terrified Americans dipping into their mattresses and buying things again.
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foxnews.com
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With all the negativity in the ether regarding the stability of the world economy, it’s surprising that the International Monetary Fund took so long to throw its two cents into the fray. Never the fund to disappoint, the IMF issued a report Wednesday that warns of a pending global downturn following the U.S. credit crisis, as confidence falters in finance and credit markets around the world.
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AP photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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There will hopefully come a day when the news from Wall Street is actually good (at the moment, anything better than utterly terrifying news would be nice), but Tuesday was not that day, despite Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s intimations that help could soon be on the way.
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World Economic Forum / Remy Steinegger
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On Monday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee took a look into the collapse of Lehman Brothers as part of a larger review of the factors leading to the current economic crisis, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Judging by the committee’s account, leaders at Lehman Bros. disregarded key warnings of impending trouble and cut hefty checks for their fellow executives even as the firm teetered on the brink of disaster.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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To help all those still reeling from sudden onset econo-tastrophe syndrome, the BBC has put together a handy timeline, which connects the dots between events over the last couple years but doesn’t quite take the long view, thus leaving out a few key moments and players from, say, the 1990s (paging Phil Gramm).
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The New York Times / Doug Mills
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On Friday the House approved, after initially rejecting, the $700-billion bailout package for the financial industry in what is likely to be the most expensive government intervention in the nation’s history. This, of course, only slightly surpasses another notable “government intervention”—the nearly $600 billion spent in the war in Iraq.
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California Governor's Office
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Tight credit has put California’s state budget into a bit of a pickle, with funding for the government’s day-to-day operations drying up faster than Sarah Palin’s popularity. A sign of trouble is a letter—leaked Friday—from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that warned of a potential emergency request for a $7-billion loan within the coming weeks.
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bls.gov
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A government report released Friday morning leaves little room for any defense of the failed policies of the Bush administration or any belief in the economic wisdom of John McCain, whose erroneous assertion that the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” failed to mention a 6.1 percent unemployment rate, up nearly two percentage points since 2007.
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AP photo / Lauren Victoria Burke
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If you thought the Iraq war was expensive, the Bush administration is also throwing an estimated $1-trillion bailout of major finance firms to prevent a meltdown of the U.S. economy. President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson outlined such a “bold approach” Friday morning, yet detailed plans still remain forthcoming.
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astoriafederal.com
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The annual savings rate dropped to the lowest level in 74 years, the Commerce Department has reported. On average, Americans saved a “negative 1 percent” in 2006, meaning people not only didn’t save but dipped into their savings and borrowed in order to spend more than their income.
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From TreeHugger.com
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A progressive-minded blog called DeepMarket.com is teaming up with CarbonFund.org to offset one ton of carbon emissions for every blog that links to it. (h/t: Tree Hugger)
Hey, blogosphere: Link up! It doesn’t cost you anything.
Posted on Jun 1, 2006
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The Justice Dept. pored through the bank, library or telecom records of 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents—without a court’s approval. Apparently this was legal—it’s just the first time the FBI is publicly disclosing hard numbers.
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