Downey Savings and Loan: The Anatomy of an Option ARM led California Banking Disaster. Other People’s Money Delusion.
On June 15, 2009 the Office of the Inspector General issued their audit report regarding the failure of California’s Downey Savings and Loan Association (Downey). Now the story of DSL is important because it highlights the entire process of how we came to this financial crisis that now threatens the economic stability of the world. […]
Tracking the Great Recession: Global Industrial Output and World Stock Markets Following the Great Depression.
How the investing world quickly forgets. If we go back into the distant future of March 2009, you would remember that on a panic filled day, the S&P 500 flirted with the 666 low. Since that day, the S&P 500 has rallied an astonishing 41 percent in only a 3-month period. Yet as astonishing as […]
Credit Card Debt Obsession: Americans Unwilling to Give up Plastic. Bankruptcies and the Credit Card Addiction.
The banking crisis with mortgages at the center, has taken much of the economic headline news over the past two years. Yet there is a brewing problem in the credit card markets. Credit card debt is now becoming another bubble itching to burst. The meteoric rise in bankruptcies is simply a reflection that Americans have […]
FDIC Banking Report: 305 Troubled Institutions up from 90 in 2008. $13.5 trillion Assets held with 2.1 Million Employees at 8,200 Institutions.
The FDIC is facing the highest amount of bank failures since the early 1990s. To calm Americans the government in 2008 upped the amount secured at FDIC institutions from $100,000 to $250,000 for each customer account. Yet losses have been so deep that in the fourth quarter of 2008 the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) quickly […]