The road least pillaged – S&P 500 up 90 percent from bottom but housing values down 30 percent nationwide. Wealthy store most of their wealth in stocks while most Americans have their net worth in housing. 2010 record year in foreclosures and the upcoming lost decade in housing.
There are few investments in the US that are so heavily subsidized like housing. Residential and commercial real estate included benefit from favorable government policies to increase demand. Some of these policies may have merit but a large part of the housing market has been injected with so many perks that the true value of […]
The gambling economy – Nevada GDP contracted 6.4 percent during the crisis. A state where 1 out of 4 people is unemployed or underemployed. States trying to balance budgets with gambling and casinos.
Nevada has really taken a hard hit from the current recession. Most Americans at some level have felt the repercussions of the current financial crisis but Nevada has felt the pangs of the crisis much deeper. Nevada now holds the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. Nevada’s GDP is $131 billion with […]
FDIC and US banking industry continued insolvency – 11 percent of US banks are labeled as troubled financial institutions. CEO on the record of exporting American middle class.
The US banking system is largely a system based on consumer confidence. You would require the confidence of Zeus if you had $13.3 trillion in assets backed by an FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) that is practically insolvent. Even as the stock market solidly recovers to the green the state of the average American’s financial […]
Credit card withdrawal – Banks pull the plug on consumer revolving debt. Credit card debt outstanding contracts from nearly $1 trillion to $800 billion. Bankruptcies on the rise even with tougher bankruptcy laws.
When people talk about the credit bubble they typically refer to the housing bubble and the trillions of dollars of debt secured by real estate. Yet the credit bubble also applies to student loans, government debt, and those pesky wallet hugging credit cards. The American economy has embraced credit cards as quickly as apple pie […]