If you google “flow of funds” and select “Flow of Funds Accounts of the US” then go to the most recent release which is Dec 11, 2008 for the 3Q08, then go to R.100 Change in Net worth of Households and Nonprofit Organizations. The headline number in row 1 is sobering. It shows the change [...]
All the mortgages in the US is little over 10 trillion. Yet the bailouts are already over 8 trillion. Amount of money lost through foreclosures is much less. It would have been cheaper for the government just to guarantee payment on every mortgage. Why then is the news just getting worse? Because the money is [...]
The way I understand the crisis, the bad mortgages were just the bottom card in an elaborate house of cards built by the financial markets. When it got yanked out, things started to collapse, but surely the amount of money lost in these bad loans in the subprime market - of which people on food [...]
With GM and Chrysler less than 19 days away from bankruptcy, and with the U.S. Senate rejecting automakers’ pleas for an emergency bailout, Treasury Secretary Paulson has just pledged he will not let them fail.
Here’s why no amount of money Paulson or anyone else throws at Detroit can save GM or Chrysler now.
Why massive deflationary [...]
BEIJING (AP) — China said it plans to increase the amount of money circulating in its economy next year in a new effort to spur consumer spending and shield the country from a global downturn.
Saturday’s announcement by the country’s State Council, or Cabinet, comes on the heels of a multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package announced last [...]
The rebuilding of the Gulf Coast is scored as a plus since it generates building and employment, but the original destruction isn’t counted as a loss.
By just focusing on half the picture economists and policy planners have consistently come up with programs which are suboptimal in terms of providing the best environment for the vast [...]
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River . Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for [...]
“As an engineer in the oil and gas industry, I work on risk management issues all the time. We look at the worst case potential loss for investments we make in upgrading equipment like a platform or refinery. If there is a big risk of loss, we would put in the safety system to reduce [...]
The US government is currently 10 trillion dollars in debt and that is projected to go to 11 trillion or more in two years. Paying the interest on that huge debt in future years will cost about as much as what is spent on national defense (using modern historical interest rates and the cost of [...]
on top of the $85 billion we gave them in round 1, and the $35 billion that followed? Surely somehitng will be announced tomorrow before Asia opens or Monday before market open at the latest. Just this week’s trick to keep the market propped up (afterall, the whole purpors of the governemnt is to please [...]
GM needs 75 billion more this year. AIG wants who knows what next. The banks all want more 100’s of billion more. The other insurers want bailout money. The major home builders want bailout money. This is insane.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — American International Group Inc. reportedly is seeking a new bailout from the U.S. government [...]
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Hedge funds saw a record $210 billion drop in assets under management during the third quarter as investors redeemed an unprecedented amount of money from the industry after poor performance, according to a survey released Friday.
“With losses continuing through October, it appears that 2008 will be the worst year on record [...]
no one including Paulson or Barnacke will go on record that this plan will have the desired effect. Nine days ago the Leader of the Senate, Paulson & Barnacke all said the same thing ‘we don’t know what to do this is new territory’. By the way this is $250-700B pipeline; THERE IS NOT TOTAL [...]
The Federal Reserve controls the “money supply” in the US. You can think of it as the amount of money that’s out there for use. They control the money supply through direct injections or by manipulating interest rates. When interest rates are lower, more people go to take out loans from banks, which adds money [...]
Consumer debt — including credit cards and auto loans but not including mortgages - increased $4.6 billion to $2.59 trillion, the Fed said. It was the slowest growth in credit since the 1.9% growth rate in December.
June’s growth was revised down from 6.7%, or $14.3 billion, to 5.1%, or $11 billion.
Slowing consumer credit means that [...]
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