1.41 Million Americans Filed for Personal Bankruptcies in 2009 a jump of 32 Percent from 2008. More and More Average Americans Resorting to Bankruptcy even with Tougher Rules to File.
The employment report out on Friday just goes to show that the American economy is still struggling to create jobs for average Americans. In fact 85,000 more jobs were lost in December but that isn’t the biggest data point out of the report. The civilian labor force shrunk by a stunning 661,000 and that is […]
What Isn’t Happening with the $3 Trillion Commercial Real Estate Market: Loans Falling and Vacancy Rates at Record Heights at 10 Percent.
With commercial real estate, you can learn a lot from what isn’t happening. We all know that the $3 trillion commercial real estate market is already taking a drubbing in terms of pricing. CRE prices are down over 40 percent from their peak elevated levels. Yet with commercial real estate you don’t have the typical […]
Buying a Home in America today is Expensive Thanks to the Banking Sector: Examining Income and Home Prices from 1950 to the Present. Can Home Prices Fall Another 38 Percent?
A question rarely asked regarding the housing market today is whether prices are affordable. There seems to be this implicit belief that because prices have fallen so drastically that they somehow must reflect a bargain. This is not necessarily true. I think in our consumerist society people are conditioned to automatically assume that a lower […]
How the Financially Connected Prospered in a Decade where Wealth Evaporated for the Majority: S&P 500 Down 24 Percent for the Decade, Real Home Values down 3%, U.S. Dollar down 23%, and Unemployment back to 1980 Levels.
As we usher in the New Year the filthy rich are counting their blessings and must be very appreciative of the massive bailouts that protected their wealth. The top one percent of this country control 42 percent of all financial wealth so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that most of the bailouts went to […]