Frugal News
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| The end of the financial world |
| 01/04/09 11:31 AM EST | Government |
| "This is one reason the collapse of our financial system has inspired not merely a national but a global crisis of confidence. Good God, the world seems to be saying, if they don.t know what they are doing with money, who does?" |
| More Government: GMAC, the Fed, and moral hazard |
| Capitalism is worst system except for the rest |
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| Why we keep falling for financial scams |
| 01/03/09 11:40 AM EST | Crime |
| "Intelligent people have long been ruined by frauds. Psychologist Stephen Greenspan, who specializes in gullibility, explores why investors continue to be swindled -- and how he came to lose part of his savings to Bernard Madoff." |
| More Crime: The Perfect Ponzi |
| How can you spot a wall street crook? |
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| The go-go investor |
| 01/02/09 11:40 PM EST | Funds |
| "his was a boom-and-bust story. He got rich in the process but also became the symbol of an era, in much the same way that Michael Milken became the symbol of the junk-bond-fueled excesses of the 1980s and Henry Blodget the symbol of the Internet bubble. Afterward, the portrait that was painted of him was not flattering. And it bugged him." |
| More Funds: Time to ditch the style box |
| Beware ETNs |
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| GMAC, the Fed, and moral hazard |
| 12/30/08 8:27 PM EST | Government |
| "These are important questions, because this is not the last time that bondholders are going to be asked to give up money they're owed in order to save a company. In fact, a much bigger bond exchange is looming: one from GM itself. And nowhere are moral hazard considerations more important than when it comes to the tactics of distressed-debt exchanges. If a bailout is coming anyway, then a smart bondholder will always stay out of any exchange. And if most bondholders are smart, then no distressed company can effect a significant debt reduction without declaring bankruptcy." |
| More Government: Capitalism is worst system except for the rest |
| Bailout of Long-Term Capital |
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| Capitalism is worst system except for the rest |
| 12/30/08 7:43 PM EST | Government |
| "Fixing the price of any other commodity, including labor, has proven to be a failure, an affront to the inviolable invisible hand. Yet when it comes to setting the interest rate that will keep the economy on an even keel, we put our faith in a chosen few to get it right. All sorts of unintended consequences flow forth from central bankers' fixing of a short-term rate." |
| More Government: Bailout of Long-Term Capital |
| A mortgage bailout plan's paltry results |
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| Home prices post record 18% drop |
| 12/30/08 11:29 AM EST | Real Estate |
| "Home prices posted another record decline in October, falling 18% compared with a year earlier, according to a closely watched report released Tuesday. The 20-city S&P Case-Shiller index has posted losses for a staggering 27 months in a row. In October, 14 of the 20 cities set fresh price decline records." |
| More Real Estate: Former WaMu employees tell of the push to lend |
| U.S. home prices drop by record 13.2% |
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| Former WaMu employees tell of the push to lend |
| 12/29/08 10:46 AM EST | Real Estate |
| "As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John D. Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling stockbrokers'. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes. Yet even by WaMu's relaxed standards, one mortgage four years ago raised eyebrows. The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer." |
| More Real Estate: U.S. home prices drop by record 13.2% |
| How high-risk mortgages crept north |
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| Bailout of Long-Term Capital |
| 12/29/08 10:12 AM EST | Government |
| "The financial crisis is a result of many bad decisions, but one of them hasn.t received enough attention: the 1998 bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund. If regulators had been less concerned with protecting the fund.s creditors, our current problems might not be quite so bad." |
| More Government: A mortgage bailout plan's paltry results |
| Obama's program flunks basic math |
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| Accounting standards wilt under pressure |
| 12/27/08 3:21 PM EST | Accounting |
| "World leaders have vowed to help prevent future financial meltdowns by creating international accounting standards so all companies would play by the same rules, but the effort has instead been mired in loopholes and political pressures." |
| More Accounting: Companies win, investors lose |
| SEC agrees to accounting shift |
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| A mortgage bailout plan's paltry results |
| 12/26/08 12:40 PM EST | Government |
| "Basically, the plan was to offer as much as $300 billion in government-guaranteed home loans to people whose current mortgages exceed the value of their houses; 400,000 people would benefit, it was said. Well, the early returns are in, and the program is, at this point, a flop. There have been only 312 applications, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. At that rate, the three-year program would help only about 5,400 borrowers." |
| More Government: Obama's program flunks basic math |
| California will run out of money in February |
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| Obama's program flunks basic math |
| 12/26/08 12:27 PM EST | Government |
| "O'Neill did the math so you don't have to. Each job 'will cost $250,000, which doesn't suggest much labor intensity for the dollars spent,' he said. 'It makes me wonder if any of the planners or commentators are good at arithmetic.' They're not good at arithmetic. And one wonders about their facility with economics." |
| More Government: California will run out of money in February |
| Solar meets polar |
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| California will run out of money in February |
| 12/26/08 12:08 PM EST | Government |
| "Property taxes, the mainstay of any state's income, have been frozen for many homeowners since a proposition was passed in the late 1970s. A separate measure, introduced in the 1980s, means that income taxes cannot be raised without the agreement of two-thirds of the state's lawmakers. Meanwhile, a raft of other ballot measures control spending, meaning that only 25 per cent of California's spending is considered "discretionary". The rest has been "earmarked" for a particular cause or project." |
| More Government: Solar meets polar |
| Get ready for a lost decade |
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| Solar meets polar |
| 12/26/08 12:03 PM EST | Government |
| "Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy. This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine." |
| More Government: Get ready for a lost decade |
| California crisis may crunch jobs |
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| Get ready for a lost decade |
| 12/24/08 12:58 PM EST | Government |
| "How many times have you heard that we've learned the lessons of the Great Depression and won't repeat the same mistakes? That statement is a bit of a false promise, since there was only one Great Depression, and many, many steps were taken and not taken, with no chance to rerun the experiment over and over to figure out what worked, or would have worked, and what didn't." |
| More Government: California crisis may crunch jobs |
| Daddy, where do bailouts come from? |
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| California crisis may crunch jobs |
| 12/24/08 12:47 PM EST | Government |
| "Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled Legislature are deadlocked on how to close a two-year budget gap that grew to $42 billion as job losses and stalled consumer spending reduced income and sales taxes. Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders met yesterday without a resolution and are scheduled to continue talks through the holidays. " |
| More Government: Daddy, where do bailouts come from? |
| All the regulations money can buy |
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| U.S. home prices drop by record 13.2% |
| 12/23/08 11:10 AM EST | Real Estate |
| "Purchases declined 8.6 percent to an annual rate of 4.49 million, from a 4.91 million rate in October that was less than previously estimated, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median price dropped 13.2 percent from a year earlier, the biggest decline since records started in 1968. Separately, the Commerce Department reported today that new-home sales fell 2.9 percent last month to a 17-year low." |
| More Real Estate: How high-risk mortgages crept north |
| The American Dream? |
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