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Recent Reviews
- How we pay with plastic will change Monday with new credit card rules
- Eliminating ‘He Said, She Said’ on Loan Modifications
- 10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who’ve Been Screwing You
- The Unemployment Game Show: Are You *Really* Unemployed? – From Mint.com
- Credit card’s newest trick: 79.9 percent interest
- 42% of parents have paid a child’s debt
- More Homeowners Fall Behind on Mortgages
- Problem mortgages hit new high at 14 percent
- Google Tackles Mortgage Market With New Comparison Ads
- Latest bank fee is for paying off credit card on time every month
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Like it or not, here comes more stimulus
There’s a push to extend some expiring provisions from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But it will be done in bits and pieces.
You won’t see it all in one neat package. And you won’t hear the White House call it stimulus.
But there’s a good chance lawmakers will decide to extend some of the stimulus measures included in the $787 billion economic recovery package passed in February and possibly create some new ones as well.
On Wednesday, House Democrats are convening a forum of economists to debate the state of the economy, with a specific focus on job creation. And lawmakers are convening hearings on Capitol Hill this week to discuss the economic outlook and the state of the housing market.
A number of ideas on the table are lifeline measures, while some are flat-out incentives to spur economic activity.
Here’s a rundown of what’s under consideration, estimates of what the provisions might cost and where they stand currently in the legislative process.
By year-end, an estimated 1.3 million jobless workers will have run out of unemployment benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project.
It’s expected that lawmakers won’t let that happen.
The House has already approved an extension and the Senate has amended it but not yet voted on it. Both parties say they want to extend benefits but they disagree over how to pay for it and how to handle amendments to the bill.
In the Senate proposal, unemployment benefits would be extended by up to 14 weeks in every state and then another six weeks on top of that in states where the unemployment rate tops 8.5%.
Read more at: CNN Money.com
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{Photography by Nick Starr}
BudgetSketch® Simple. Effective. Budgeting.
Top-paying jobs in the U.S.
Anesthesiologists take home a median $292,000 salary annually. What other great careers from Money and PayScale.com’s list of Best Jobs in America offer big paychecks?
Read more at: CNN Money
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{Photography by Syl2m}
Failures of Small Banks Grow, Straining F.D.I.C.
A year after Washington rescued the banks considered too big to fail, the ones deemed too small to save are approaching a grim milestone: the 100th bank failure of 2009.
In what has become a ritual, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has swooped down on a handful of troubled lenders almost every Friday, seizing 98 since January alone and putting their assets into the hands of another bank.
While the parade of failures still represents a mere fraction of America’s small banks, it underscores a growing divide between them and large institutions like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and U.S. Bancorp, which are slowly growing stronger as the economy improves.
Burdened by worsening commercial real estate loans, many small banks’ troubles are just beginning. Many analysts say that the now-toxic loans could sink hundreds of small lenders over the next few years and place a significant drag on the economy.
Already, the bank failures are placing enormous strain on the F.D.I.C. and its fund, which keeps depositors whole. Flush with more than $50 billion only two years ago, the fund recently fell into the red.
Read more at: The New York Times
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{Photography by Dave Mcmt}
Steep Losses Pose Crisis for Pensions
Two Bad Choices for Funds: Cut Benefits Or Take Greater Risks to Rebuild Assets
The financial crisis has blown a hole in the rosy forecasts of pension funds that cover teachers, police officers and other government employees, casting into doubt as never before whether these public systems will be able to keep their promises to future generations of retirees.
The upheaval on Wall Street has deluged public pension systems with losses that government officials and consultants increasingly say are insurmountable unless pension managers fundamentally rethink how they pay out benefits or make money or both.
Within 15 years, public systems on average will have less half the money they need to pay pension benefits, according to an analysis by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Other analysts say funding levels could hit that low within a decade.
After losing about $1 trillion in the markets, state and local governments are facing a devil’s choice: Either slash retirement benefits or pursue high-return investments that come with high risk.
Read more at: The Washington Post
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{Photography by: Alex E. Proimos}
Homeowners who ’strategically default’ on loans a growing problem
A study shows that people who abruptly and intentionally abandon their mortgages often have high credit scores, in stark contrast with most financially distressed borrowers.
Reporting from Washington –
Who is more likely to walk away from a house and a mortgage — a person with super-prime credit scores or someone with lower scores?
Research using a massive sample of 24 million individual credit files has found that homeowners with high scores when they apply for a loan are 50% more likely to “strategically default” — abruptly and intentionally pull the plug and abandon the mortgage — compared with lower-scoring borrowers.
National credit bureau Experian teamed with consulting company Oliver Wyman to identify the characteristics and debt management behavior of the growing numbers of homeowners who bail out of their mortgages with none of the expected warning signs, such as nonpayments on other debts.
Read more at: Los Angeles Times
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{Photography by Robyn2175}
French: The Most Productive People In The World
A new survey from UBS has shown that the French continue to work the least amount of hours per year in the world. Once again, the French have blown away the competition.
People work an average of 1,902 hours per year in the surveyed cities but they work much longer in Asian and Middle Eastern cities… People in Lyon and Paris, by contrast, spend the least amount of time at work according to the global comparison: 1,582 and 1,594 hours per year respectively.
Upon seeing this data, some might criticize the French for being lazy, but that misses the point completely. The real message here is that the French are likely some of the most productive people in the entire world.
Read more at: The Business Insider
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{Photography by: The Ritters}
Austan Goolsbee – Credit Card Bill Kicks in August 20, 2009
Austan Goolsbee of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers talks about the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 – also known as the Credit Card Bill of Rights – which he worked hard on and which kicks in today. Watch the video to get a taste of the types of credit card headaches you won’t have to deal with anymore.
Using A CARS Rebate? Know Your Rights First
Jim decided to take advantage of the Cash For Clunkers program and trade his Crown Victoria in on something a little more fuel-efficient. Unfortunately, the dealership where he bought the car wasn’t quite ready to handle one of the most frightening of all creatures: an informed consumer. They counted on their customers to not fully understand all of the program’s rules.
Read more at: The Consumerist
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{Photography by Threaded Thoughts}
Phishing Scams in Plain English
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