Sales of Ford Motor Company’s trademark pick-up trucks and SUVs were down 28% for the month of June, sending the DOW plunging into bear territory again, along with news of the worst inflation yet this year and oil prices today nipping at $143 per barrel. It’s sad really, but also more than a bit maddening.
I’m [...]

With the recent turnaround in the stock market, happy days are here again, at least for a minute. And yet, if you are very, very still, you will a hear a faint rustling in the background, like something scary sneaking up on a rabbit.
That rustling you hear is everybody sneaking around looking for anybody to [...]

Can the U.S. economy possibly get any scarier or more complicated?
The short answer is yes, it can. The longer, more complicated answer is that the looming (potential) failures of Ford, GM, and Chrysler present long term sustainability problems for a middle class that is already clamoring for short term, emergency solutions.
Ford recently announced [...]

Why, oh why, did the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression have to hit during a presidential election year?
The ‘Fear Index’, also known as the VIX (or, officially, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index) is a financial tool that measures market swings or volatility. The higher the VIX goes, the scarier the market [...]

In an op-ed piece of October 17’s New York Times world-famous entrepreneur and financier Warren Buffet urged American investors to return to the stock market and bet on the long term future success of the United States. “Buy American,” Buffett’s headline reads. “I am.”
The essay was a vote of confidence from a successful guy at [...]

A recent article splashed across the front page of the mid-size mid-western city where I live tells a surprisingly unfamiliar story about how ordinary people have pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars by investing in subprime real estate. Though the current financial crisis has brought about intense discussion about the moral hazard of borrowing beyond [...]

With the U.S. credit crunch gone global and the $700 billion bailout package now looking like a small drop of water in a tidal wave of woe, the question of blame is now all over the media.
Who caused this mess?
If you read the Wall Street Journal you could easily come away thinking that the whole [...]

For at least a year now, ordinary people in the United States (people the press has been referring to as “Main Street”) have known that the economy was starting to slow down at the same time that prices were rising uncomfortably fast.
Now, some economists are finally starting to admit that, yes, the U.S. probably went [...]

On October 7, American Express revealed that they will begin limiting their customers’ access to credit based on both where they shop and which bank holds their primary mortgage. While there is nothing in the law that prevents American Express (or any other credit card company) from doing this, the announcement is noteworthy coming [...]

The U.S. stock market has been nothing if not volatile this year, especially over the course of the past few weeks. As the current credit crisis tightened and the world watched in horror, what most people saw was the stock market spiking and plummeting, often on mere rumor and speculation, and sometimes on the [...]