I was listening to a money programme about the credit crunch in the UK this morning on my iPod Wake Up To Money (Podcast). They were discussing ways in which the credit crunch was made manifest to home buyers in the UK. In the broadcast, the presenters mntioned that mortgage rates are effectively were [...]

When we think about outsourcing, we usually think about Call centers in India or manufacturing jobs in China. Well, what about automatic cashiers?
I went to the local CVS (Shoppers Drug Mart or Boots for Canadian and British readers) this morning to buy some milk because my wife needed some milk with her coffee daily [...]

Yesterday and overnight, there was a ton of news in Europe, in banking and in geopolitics. So, I am going to alter the format of the round-up slightly and give you a rundown with links mixed in.
The long and short is that the banking sector is in dire straits, economies are tanking and geopolitical [...]

A year into the crisis, it’s time to let banks start to fend for themselves — or at least let their shareholders do the heavy lifting. That’s what the President of the Dutch Central Bank Nout Wellink had to say earlier today. Below is my translation of an article from the Financieele Dagblad, a [...]

Since June, bond yields have fallen to the point where the U.S. government is getting paid to borrow money right across the entire yield curve. The 10-year is 3.8%, while inflation in the U.S. is 5.6% . What gives? This is either a flight to quality or a harbinger of hard economic times.
Caroline [...]

Below are the latest writedown stories from the web that I have seen. For the full timeline of news, visit my credit crisis timeline. Bloomberg recently updated their tally of writedowns to arrive at $503.8 Billion to date. That is on the timeline as well.
Also see my list of Bankrupt Global Financial [...]

Oil surges above $120 as tensions rise – Fin 24 (A bit of a delayed reaction, if you asked me. Oil gapped way up $5 today. Huge move. Last I saw it was at $121)
Lone Star Funds to take over IKB – BBC News (So I guess American buyout shops are fine but [...]

The Beijing Olympic games are supposed to be China’s coming out cotillion. As the west struggles with deleveraging and recession, China wants to make a statement that it has arrived. The games have gone off remarkably well and most reports from the games have been positive.
But, China is coming out in other places [...]

Back in May, I showed you a chart of Total U.S. Debt which demonstrated that the United States was an increasingly indebted country. This chart was for all domestic debt minus financials and it topped out at about 225% of GDP.
Below is the same chart for the U.S., except this time I have added [...]

U.S. jobless claims were down 12,000 this week to 430,000. However, the 4-week average increased to 445,750 and is now 125,750 higher than a year ago. Over the past 4 or 5 weeks, claims have spiked up in part due to the extension of unemployment benefits. Therefore, it won’t be clear how [...]